T 
-gc 

BIBS 


DRAWN    BY    W.   T.   6MEDLEY. 

IN   THE   WORLD'S   FAIR    GROUNDS   AT    CHICAGO— THE    ELECTRICAL    BUILDING   FROM   THE   LAKE. 


[See  "  The  Making  of  the  White  City."  page  415.] 


I  ftP 


SCRIBNER'S  MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  XII 


OCTOBER,    1892. 


No.  4. 


THE   MAKING   OF  THE   WHITE   CITY. 


By  H.  C.  Bunner. 

THE  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY  W.  T.  SMEDLET. 


ON  the  shore   of  a  wide,   blue- 
gray  lake,  under  a  northern  sky, 
veiled  over  half  its  horizon  with  a 
dim,  smoky  mist,  there  spread,  two 
years   ago,   a  waste   and   desolate 
sand  plain  with  a  streak  of  marshy 
pools  in  the  heart  of  it.     Here  and 
there  were  trunks  of  scrubby  trees 
and  patches  of  starveling   under- 
brush ;   but   it    had   none    of    the 
pleasant  loneliness  of  the  country- 
side :    the    bleak    desolation    of    a 
great  city's  waste  outskirts  brood- 
ed over  the  whole  tract.     On  the 
west   the   space   was   bounded   by 
the  flat  broad  road-bed  of  a  sub- 
urban railroad ;  eastward  a  strong 
wall  of  ponderoiis  masonry  stood 
between  it  and  the  sullen  swash  of 
the  inland   sea.     To  the  south  it  w^~ 
went  out  of  sight  in  loneliness  ;  on 
the  north  it  narrowed  to  a  point 
where  a  great  town  had  begun  a 
fight  with  nature  for  a  few  acres  of 
pleasure-ground,  stubbornly  pushing  a 
green  covering  of  young  trees  and  grass 
across  the  unwilling  sand.     Beyond  this 
patch  of  verdure  trailed  out  the  city's 
myriad   streets,    sparsely    settled   here, 
for   the   town    proper   lay   eight   miles 
away  in  the   heart  of  the  smoky  haze 
that  floated  along  the  sky-line. 

In  the  month  of  June,  1891,  a  man 
stuck  the  nose  of  a  plough  into  the  sand 
of  this  plain,  by  way  of  beginning  an 
undertaking  which  lay  before  him,  and 
before  some  scores  of  thousands  of 


A   Bit  of  Decoration. 

working  men  all  over  the  country — 
day  -  laborers,  like  himself  ;  iron -for- 
gers, architects,  truckmen,  carpenters, 
painters,  surveyors,  glaziers,  designers, 
moulders,  joiners,  masons,  gardeners — 
men  of  every  trade  and  art  and  handi- 
craft, of  every  nationality,  of  every  class 
and  kind  of  humanity,  working  together 
in  widely  separate  places  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  one  common  purpose. 
To-clay,  in  the  prosecution  of  this  under- 
taking, the  surface  of  that  waste  plain 
has  become  the  scene  of  one  of  the  most 


Copyright,  1892,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.    All  rights  reserved. 


400 


THE  MAKING  OF  THE  WHITE  CITY. 


marvellous  manifestations  of  mechanical 
achievement  which  the  world  has  to 
offer  ;  it  is  the  site  of  such  a  group  of 
buildings  as  has  never  before  been  as- 
sembled for  such  a  purpose,  on  such  a 
scale,  within  such  a  time,  and  in  such 
conditions.  It  sounds  like  an  extrava- 
gance to  say  that  within  this  space  of 
half  a  thousand  acres  is  concentrated 
the  energy,  the  skill,  the  intelligence,  the 
activity,  equipped  with  every  material 


quite  inadequate  to  suggest  the  breadth 
and  range  of  design  which  make  the 
construction  of  the  World's  Fair  Build- 
ings at  Chicago  remarkable  among  the 
great  things  done  by  modern  engineers, 
architects,  and  constructors ;  for  the 
scale  of  the  work  forces  us  to  new 
standards  of  admeasurement.  It  is  a 
scale  so  unusual  that  the  physical  eye 
is  tricked  until  it  finds  for  itself  new 
and  specially  applicable  points  of  com- 


The  Exhibition  Ground  as  it  was  in  June,    1891. 


requisite,  that  would  suffice  to  build  up 
a  large  city  in  the  space  of  three  years  ; 
but  to  this  plain  statement  of  fact  must 
be  added  this  other  :  that  the  city  is 
built.  He  who  goes  to  that  lake-side 
desert  a  year  from  now  will  see,  rising 
from  a  gracious  and  well-ordered  gar- 
den, a  white  city  of  glass  and  iron,  a 
system  of  structures  gigantic  in  plan 
and  scope  beyond  anything  that  science 
has  hitherto  held  feasible  or  desirable 
for  the  sheltering  of  a  multitude  of 
pleasure-seekers. 

If  you  accept  this  statement  literally, 
it  may  convey  to  the  mind  a  notion  of 
colossal  achievement,  and  yet  it  may  be 


parisoii  and  appreciation.  We  may 
know  that  the  great  central  span  of  the 
main  building  is  the  largest  arched  roof 
in  the  world ;  but  the  eye  notes  little 
difference  between  the  impression  of 
that  huge  arc  and  the  picture  that 
memory  reproduces  of  similar  mighty 
curves.  Nor  yet  does  the  eye  see  more 
understandingly  when  it  compares  the 
monstrous  bow  with  one  of  the  insig- 
nificant men  who  are  making  it.  But 
turn  and  look  at  the  man  on  the  top  of 
the  next  huge  building ;  establish  a 
scale  of  proportion  between  that  man 
and  that  building,  and  then  another  be- 
tween the  two  buildings,  and  then  you 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


401 


Up  Among  the  Great  Iron  Arches  of  the  Hall  of  Manufactures. 


obtain  some  idea  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  wonderful  edifice  which,  rising 
above  and  dominating  all  its  fellows, 
still  leaves  them  individually  huge  and 
imposing.  Even  so  the  mind  must 
grasp  that  idea  by  a  scheme  of  com- 
parison that  seems  strained,  almost 
whimsical  and  fantastic,  forming  men- 
tal projections  of  such  statistics  as 
these :  The  largest  building  hitherto 
made  for  purpose  of  public  exhibition, 
namely,  the  Machinery  Hall  at  Paris  in 
1889  could  be  placed  under  that  span, 
and,  if  provision  were  made  for  its  sup- 
port a  few  feet  from  the  ground,  the 
entire  population  of  the  city  of  Mil- 
waukee, which  is  over  two  hundred 


thousand  people,  could  be  seated  com- 
fortably beneath  it — and  there  would 
still  be  plenty  of  space  to  spare  under 
the  arc  of  that  main  building  that  dom- 
inates without  dwarfing  its  fellows. 

Of  course,  that  such  a  great  feat  has 
been  accomplished  in  architectural  con- 
struction does  not  necessarily  mean  that 
a  good  thing  has  been  done  as  well  as  a 
big  thing.  If  it  were  the  production  of 
an  older  civilization,  it  might  involve  or 
imply  some  such  guarantee  of  worth, 
but  in  this  country  to  talk  thus  of  a 
public  work  is  sure  to  suggest  the  ac- 
cusation of  measuring  art  with  a  yard- 
stick and  architecture  by  the  acre.  It 
would  be  easy  enough  to  put  our  liberal 


402 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


Jackson  Park — now  a  Part  of  the  Exhibition  Grounds. 


resources  of  technical  skill,  enterprise, 
organization,  and  wealth  into  so  stupen- 
dous a  work  for  no  higher  aim  than  to 
gratify  an  ignorant  vanity,  and  to  no 
happier  end  than  our  ultimate  humilia- 
tion and  discouragement.  Such  things 
have  happened  before  in  the  history  of 
our  progress,  and  a  country  like  this 
would  be  marked  for  premature  decay 
if  such  things  did  not  happen  in  the 
first  two  or  three  centuries  of  its  lusty 
youth. 

When  the  conduct  of  the  World's 
Fair  was  allotted  by  Congress  to  the 
city  of  Chicago,  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  there  was  a  general  fear,  and  that 
there  was  generally  good  ground  for 
that  fear,  that  Chicago's  conception  of 
the  housing  of  the  World's  Fair  might 
be  more  interesting  for  material  breadth 
than  for  aesthetic  height ;  and  the  fear 
has  certainly  not  been  lessened  by  the 
report  of  Chicago's  adoption  of  the 
Brobdingnagian  scale. 

Eighteen  hundred  and  ninety-three 
and  the  opening  of  the  World's  Fair 
will  come  soon  enough  to  show  us 
how  well  this  country,  represented  by 


her  second  greatest  city,  has  assumed 
the  burden  which  the  performance  of 
such  a  task  imposes  upon  her  loyalty  to 
art,  her  good  taste  and  her  catholicity 
of  interest,  and  those  who  form  the 
judgment  of  the  world  in  such  matters 
will,  if  we  may  judge  by  experience,  be 
neither  stinting  in  censure  nor  extrava- 
gant in  praise.  It  is  not  in  any  way 
the  object  of  this  paper  to  forerun  ma- 
ture judgment  or  to  forecast  the  value 
of  the  finished  work.  It  aims  simply  to 
give  some  portrayal  of  a  most  interest- 
ing phase  and  of  a  great  and  singular 
activity,  to  sketch  an  imposing  and  be- 
wildering work  at  its  most  significant 
stage,  and  to  show  the  lines  on  which 
the  men  who  have  been  chosen  for  the 
mighty  task  are  endeavoring  to  carry 
out  the  behest  of  the  state,  and  turn  in 
less  than  forty  months  a  barren  wilder- 
ness into  a  garden  of  palaces — to  let  the 
work  that  is  being  done  at  Chicago 
speak  for  itself. 

It  is  necessary  to  turn  first  to  one 
page  of  the  history  of  the  Fair — not  the 
page  that  tells  of  the  extraordinary  ex- 
hibition of  indecorum  made  at  one  time 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


403 


by  two  great  cities,  each  for  itself,  as 
well  as  in  their  relations  with  each 
other.  No,  the  page  we  would  turn  to 
bears  pleasanter  reading.  It  tells  of 
the  doing  of  the  biggest  and  best  thing 
that  has  yet  been  done  in  the  whole 


upon  American  civilization,  in  that  it 
was  carried  on  with  the  brutal  acrimony 
of  an  English  parliamentary  campaign 
and  the  sputtering  hysteria  of  an  inter- 
pellation in  the  French  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  On  the  one  side  was  an  old 


"  No  smoking!     No  cameras  allowed  on  the  grounds!" 


business  of  the  World's  Fair — of  a  big- 
ger and  better  thing  than  the  building 
of  the  biggest  and  best  temple  of  pleas- 
ure that  ever  reared  a  white  forehead 
against  a  smoky  sky.  It  is  something, 
too,  that  could  only  have  been  done  in 
America. 

The  quarrel  which  resulted  in  the 
World's  Fair  going  to  Chicago  was  a 
credit  to  neither  of  the  two  principal 
contestants.  It  reflected  unpleasantly 


city — old  as  age  goes  in  this  new  world 
— with  every  facility  for  handling  such 
an  affair,  with  experience  in  managing 
and  providing  for  crowds,  and  for  fur- 
nishing comfort  and  amusement,  split 
into  two  furious  factions  of  anxious 
citizens.  Both  factions  wanted  the 
privilege  of  having  the  Fair  ;  what  they 
disagreed  about  was  the  propriety  of 
buying  that  privilege  with  the  ruin  of 
an  irreplaceable  and  perhaps  an  incom- 


404 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


parable  park.  On  the  other  hand  was 
Chicago — new,  energetic,  enthusiastic, 
untrammelled — with  a  unanimity  of 
opinion  among  her  citizens  that  evoked 
the  praise  and  wonder  of  the  world. 
Such  unanimity  deserved  the  prize,  and 
won  it. 

But,  face  to  face  at  last  with  the  re- 
sponsibility and  the  task,  Chicago  sat 
down  to  consider  coldly  some  of  the  lim- 
itations of  the  usefulness  of  unanimity, 
and  to  discern,  perhaps,  a  certain  spir- 
itual significance  in  the  difference  of 
opinion  which  had  seemed  almost  in- 
comprehensible when  she  saw  it  vexing 
the  disunited  Eastern  mind.  There  is 
a  unanimity  that  comes  from  the  or- 
dered training  of  many  inteUects  to 
work  for  a  single  end.  There  is  also 
the  unanimity  which  hails  the  ascending 
rocket  with  the  imitative  hiss  of  admira- 
tion. The  course  of  that  unanimity 
during  the  further  career  of  the  rocket 
has  often  been  noted. 

The  undertaking  she  had  in  hand 
necessarily  brought  with  it  the  neces- 
sity of  considering  certain  problems 
that  could  not  but  be  new  to  a  new  civ- 
ilization. Perhaps,  more  than  any  other 
town,  Chicago  has  made  it  her  boast 
that  her  equipment  of  energy,  material, 
and  resource  was  always  kept  equal 
to  her  demand  upon  it.  Other  cities 
might  have  to  wait  for  men,  time,  or 
money  to  bring  about  a  realization  of 
their  dreams  ;  Chicago  kept  her  force 
of  realizers  always  on  duty  and  ready 
for  every  emergency.  Whatever  she 
wanted  she  had,  and  as  soon  as  she 
made  up  her  mind  that  she  wanted  it — 
whether  it  was  the  tallest  hotel  in  the 
world  or  the  system  of  express  passen- 
ger elevators  needed  to  make  fourteenth 
story  offices  as  accessible  as  those  on 
the  third  floor. 

No  doubt  she  made  good  her  boast. 
But  her  new  obligation  introduced  her 
to  several  wants  which  she  had  never 
before  had  to  consider,  and  which  she 
was  wholly  unprepared  to  meet.  The 
satisfaction  of  utilitarian  requirements, 
with  a  reasonable  desire  to  give  beauty  a 
fair  show  at  the  same  time,  had  hitherto 
been  the  formula  of  Chicago's  artistic 
growth.  Even  in  the  laying  out  of  her 
great  parks  she  had  attempted  little  more 
than  the  forcing  of  an  existent  flatness 


and  monotony  into  a  more  agreeable 
diversity  of  form  and  feature,  yet  while 
this  coaxing  of  a  smile  upon  the  dull 
face  of  nature  must  be  admired  as  a 
clever  performance  under  most  trying 
conditions,  it  cannot  be  held  more  than 
a  compromise  with  abstract  beauty — a 
plucky  attempt  to  wrest  from  an  unwill- 
ing soil  the  public  playground's  natural 
birthright.  The  little  artificial  hills  and 
dales  of  Lincoln  Park  were,  however, 
Chicago's  boldest  essay  for  the  sake, 
primarily,  of  the  aesthetic  rather  than 
the  useful.  That  is  to  say,  for  the 
special  work  she  had  taken  upon  herself 
she  lacked  not  only  the  necessary  special 
preparation,  but  the  situation  she  faced 
was  one  unforeseen  in  her  plan  of  life 
and  alien  to  the  essential  idea  of  her 
self-education.  Two  courses  lay  open 
to  her ;  to  degrade  the  work  to  the  level 
of  her  own  aptitude  at  the  moment,  or 
to  carry  out  her  trust  in  the  highest 
spirit  of  loyalty  and  faithfulness,  at 
whatever  cost  to  a  local  pride,  that  must 
have  been  most  sensitive,  exacting,  and 
sanguine  in  the  flush  of  recent  victory. 
Chicago  probably  has  not  as  yet  realized 
the  size  of  her  achievement  in  adopting 
the  latter  alternative  ;  it  is  not  meas- 
urable in  stone-perches,  but  it  is  the 
biggest  thing  in  Chicago's  list  all  the 
same. 

It  must,  however,  be  recorded  with 
regret  that  the  recognition  of  the  neces- 
sity of  outside  help  came  as  an  after- 
thought ;  it  was  demonstrated,  indeed, 
by  injudicious  and  unsuccessful  at- 
tempt. The  valuable  aid  that  wras  in- 
voked came  too  late  to  deal  with  the 
scheme  of  construction  as  a  complete, 
perfect,  and  independent  whole.  When 
Chicago  called  the  best  architects  and 
landscape-gardeners  to  her  aid  they 
found  that  a  part  of  the  task  before 
them  was  the  co-ordination  with  their 
own  plans  of  certain  features  not  of 
their  own  origination.  But  it  seems  as 
if  the  very  difficulty  of  doing  this  had 
added  something  to  the  enthusiasm  and 
determination  with  which  they  under- 
took the  work.  Let  us  add  that  it  was 
the  only  important  drawback  they  had 
to  encounter.  The  work  that  was 
handed  over  was  handed  over  without 
reservation  or  restriction,  and  with  their 
authority  they  received  the  fullest  pos- 


406 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


In  Process  of  Construction  (an   Entrance  of  the   Hall  of  Mines). 


sible  means  of  accomplishment  and  the 
heartiest  encouragement  and  assistance. 

Perhaps  the  first  thing  that  would 
strike  a  stranger  entering  the  World's 
Fair  grounds  in  the  summer  of  1892 
would  be  the  silence  of  the  place,  the 
next  the  almost  theatrical  unreality  of 
the  impression  by  the  sight  of  an  as- 


semblage of  buildings  so  startlingly  out 
of  the  common  in  size  and  form. 

When  I  speak  of  the  silence  I  mean 
the  effect  of  silence.  There  are  seven 
thousand  and  odd  men  at  work,  and 
they  are  hammering  and  hauling  and 
sawing  and  filing  as  noisily  as  any  other 
workmen,  but  their  noise  is  hardly  no- 
ticeable among  these  vast  spaces.  The 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


407 


disproportion  between  the  men  and  the 
structures  is  so  great  that  this  army  of 
laborers  looks  like  a  mere  random  scat- 
tering of  human  beings.  Insensibly  the 
beholder  gauges  the  amount  of  noise  he 
expects  by  the  size  of  the  work  before 
him,  and  is  surprised  at  the  insignifi- 
cant effect  of  what  he  does  hear.  All 
of  this  is  part  of  that  first  impression 
of  unreality  which  I  have  spoken  of  as 
almost  theatrical.  I  might  call  it  posi- 


tively theatrical  if  I  could  at  the  same 
time  convey  some  sense  of  the  effect  of 
certain  daylight  views  of  a  great  stage 
decked  with  ambitious  scenery.  It  is 
not  only  the  grouping  of  the  huge  white 
and  pale-yellow  buildings  that  gives 
this  impression,  although  it  is  hard 
enough  to  believe  in  that  at  first  sight ; 
for  it  cannot  but  suggest  the  extrava- 
gant fancy  that  a  dozen  or  so  palaces 
from  distant  lands — some  unmistakably 


Before  the  Agricultural   Building. 


408 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


out  of  the  Arabian  Nights — have  taken 
a  sudden  fancy  to  herd  together.  There 
are  certain  grotesque  figures  of  the 
method  of  construction  that  strikingly 
heighten  the  general  effect  of  strange- 
ness. You  watch  two  or  three  workmen 
moving  apparently  aimlessly  upon  the 
face  of  what  seems  a  stupendous  wall  of 


marble.  Suddenly  a  pillar  as  tall  as  a 
house  rises  in  the  air,  dangling  at  the 
end  of  a  thin  rope  of  wire.  The  three 
little  figures  seize  this  monstrous  showy 
shaft  and  set  it  in  place  as  though  it 
were  a  fence-post.  Then  a  man  with  a 
hand-saw  saws  a  yard  or  two  off  it,  and 
you  see  that  it  is  only  a  thin  shell  of 


Near  the  Hall  of  Mines.— The  Great  Arches  of  the  Main  Building  (Hall  of  Manufactures)  in  the  Distance. 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


409 


The  Administration  Building. 


stucco.  As  you  adjust  your  perceptive 
faculties  you  see,  two  hundred  feet 
above  your  head,  the  two  halves  of  a 
large  arch  of  veritable  iron  come  to- 
gether, moved  by  unseen  engines,  as 
noiselessly  as  though  they  were  shadows 
against  the  sky. 

This  is  the  first  impression,  and  it  is 
one  that  comes  back  most  readily  to  the 
memory  in  after  hours.  But  on  the 
spot  it  is  shortly  displaced  by  an 
amazed  perception  of  the  vast  activity 
which  informs  the  whole  scene  ;  and  an 
unspeakable  fascination  seizes  you  as 
you  watch  the  working  out  of  a  great 
fundamental  idea. 

"  The  whole  thing  is  a  sketch,"  said 
one  of  its  projectors  ;  and  in  a  certain 


sense  it  is  a  sketch,  in  lines  of  iron  and 
wash  of  plaster.  This  is  not  an  acci- 
dent ;  it  is  the  aspect,  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  builders  of  the  fair,  a 
group  of  buildings  of  this  character 
should  present.  All,  or  almost  all,  of 
the  structures  must  necessarily  be  tem- 
porary and  removable  or  convertible  to 
other  uses.  All  must  be  of  great  size  ; 
all  must  be  put  up  in  a  very  limited 
space  of  time.  This  involves  the  adop- 
tion of  the  iron -frame  system  of  con- 
struction, and  practically  makes  elabo- 
rate internal  decoration  an  impossibil- 
ity. This  situation  has  been  frankly 
accepted  by  the  architects.  They  have 
left  it  to  the  exhibits  and  their  accesso- 
ries to  decorate  the  inside  ;  their  own 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


411 


task  has  been  to  make  of  walls  and  roofs 
a  picture  pleasing  in  general  composi- 
tion and  harmonious  in  detail.  An  iron 
frame  generally  means  an  iron  casing, 
but  to  carry  out  a  scheme  like  this  it 
was  necessary  to  find  some  material  less 
obdurate,  more  easily  handled  and  more 
susceptible  of  artistic  treatment.  This 
material  was  found  in  a  combination  of 
plaster  and  jute  fibre,  called  staff,  which 
combines  adaptability  to  all  forms  of 
plastic  handling  with  a  stiffness  and 
toughness  almost  like  wood.  This  stuff 
has  made  possible  effects  of  construc- 
tion which  could  never  have  been  at- 
tempted under  the  same  conditions  with 
any  other  material.  It  is  prepared  as 
quickly  as  water  and  plaster  and  fibre 
can  be  mixed  together  ;  it  may  be  made 
coarse  or  fine,  rough  or  smooth  in  sur- 
face as  may  be  desired  ;  it  may  be  cast 
or  molded ;  it  may  be  colored ;  and 
when  it  is  dry  and  ready  for  use  it  is 
handled  almost  exactly  like  wood — 
bored,  sawed,  and  nailed.  This,  then,  is 
the  wash  in  which  the  great  sketch  of  the 
White  City  is  executed.  It  takes  every 
form  that  is  necessary  to  clothe  and  or- 
nament the  iron  skeletons  ;  it  suggests 
rather  than  simulates  stone,  and,  consid- 
ered for  itself  as  a  building  material,  it 
has  certain  agreeable  qualities  of  bright- 
ness and  softness. 

It  is  of  this  material  that  all  the  mural 
decorations  of  the  Fair  Buildings  are 
moulded,  even  to  the  statues,  and  it 
lends  itself  with  equal  readiness  to  em- 
bodying the  graceful  and  somewhat 
stern  classicism  of  Mr.  Philip  Martiny's 
slim,  long  -  winged  goddesses,  or  the 
amazing  and  somewhat  unaccountable 
vehemence  of  the  strange  allegorical 
family  with  which  Mr.  Karl  Bitter  is 
decorating  the  finials  of  the  Administra- 
tion Building. 

There  is  a  strong  contrast  between 
the  clothing  and  the  framework  of  the 
building.  The  iron  and  woodwork  em- 
ployed are  of  unusual  strength  ;  and 
the  iron  castings  are  in  some  instances 
wonders  of  scientific  manufacture.  For 
instance,  in  setting  up  the  preposter- 
ously huge  trusses  of  tlae  main  building 
it  had  not,  up  to  June,  1892,  been  found 
necessary  to  re-drill  a  single  rivet-hole 
— which  testifies  to  a  miracle  of  con- 
structive calculation  at  the  distant  foun- 


dries where  these  great  masses  of  iron 
were  shaped. 

The  whole   business  of   construction 
has  been  reduced  to  a  system  original  in 


Model  for  Statue  of  the  Republic,   by  Daniel  C.  French. 

many  respects,  and  peculiarly  applica- 
ble to  the  needs  of  the  time  and  place, 
the  main  idea  being  to  make  of  the  con- 
struction an  art  by  itself,  leaving  to  the 
architect  only  the  responsibility  of  ar- 
tistic design.  As  Mr.  Frank  D"  Millet, 
the  right-hand  man  of  Chief-Constructor 
Burnham,  tersely  puts  it :  "  We  give  our 
constructors  a  picture  and  the  dimen- 
sions, and  say,  'Make  that!":  And 
even  to  Mr.  Millet,  who  has  helped  in 
almost  every  World's  Fair  for  the  last 


DRAWN    BY   W.  T.  SMEDLEY. 


Lunch  Time. 


THE  MAKING  OF  THE  WHITE  CITY. 


413 


twenty  years,  this  is  a  new  step  in  the 
progress  of  architecture. 

With  this  possibility  of  quickly  and 
inexpensively  modelling  the  exteriors  of 
the  buildings  at  will,  it  became  also  pos- 
sible to  the  designers  to  attempt  a  bold 
effect  of  harmony  and  balance  in  the 
grouping  of  the  structures,  and  to  make 
the  individuality  of  each  building  fit 
in  with  one  underlying  design  which 
should  at  once  appeal  to  the  eye  and  to 
the  memory,  so  that  the  thought  of  any 
part  at  once  brings  to  mind  its  position 
and  significance  in  the  whole  scheme. 
To  some  extent,  of  course,  those  feat- 
ures which  they  found  themselves 
obliged  to  accept  at  the  inception  of 
their  task  have  interfered  with  the 
carrying  out  of  this  plan  in  its  absolute 
completeness  ;  but  the  interference  has 
been  far  less  than  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. 

It  may  certainly  be  said  that  the  least 
observant  of  visitors  can  hardly  fail  to 
grasp  and  retain  some  conception  of 
the  simple  and  effective  ground-plan 
which  unites  this  impressive  collection 
of  buildings,  in  the  course  of  a  single 
progress  through  the  grounds.  If  he 
comes  in  by  the  main  entrance,  the  idea 
of  order  and  system  is  presented  to  him 
at  the  very  outset.  All  the  entering 
railroads  converge  here  to  a  single  per- 
ron, or  platform,  in  front  of  which 
stands  a  square  building,  surmounted 
by  a  gilded  dome.  This  is  the  Admin- 
istration Building,  designed  by  Richard 
M.  Hunt,  of  New  York.  It  is  placed 
here  to  serve  a  double  purpose,  to  form 
a  vestibule  to  the  Fair  of  impressive 
and  symmetrical  dignity  and  beauty, 
and  to  show  the  new-comer  on  his  ar- 
rival the  headquarters  of  control  and 
management,  tinder  this  shining  dome 
he  passes  to  what  may  be  called  the 
grand  court  of  the  Exhibition,  a  mighty 
quadrangle,  flanked  on  either  side  by 
towering  white  facades,  and  bounded  at 
its  farther  end  by  a  majestic  peristyle 
raising  its  long  array  of  columns  against 
the  clear  background  of  an  enclosed 
harbor.  An  artificial  lake  or  basin  of 
water  occupies  the  greater  part  of  this 
quadrangle,  at  its  head  stretching  out 
into  a  long  transept  of  canals,  the  north- 
erly arm  connecting  with  a  long,  irregu- 
larly-shaped lagoon  at  whose  farthest- 
VOL.  XII. -46 


end  the  pillared  front  of  a  classic  tem- 
ple rises  from  the  water's  very  edge.  In 
the  angle  formed  by  these  two  water- 
vistas  stands  the  mammoth  among 
buildings,  the  Hall  of  Manufactures  and 
Liberal  Arts,  stretching  a  third  of  a 
mile  along  the  water-  side. 

It  is  the  southwestern — or  perhaps  it 
would  be  more  accurate  to  say  the 
southern — corner  of  this  stupendous 
pile  that  centres  the  whole  ground  plan 
and  fixes  in  the  mind  the  relation  of  its 
principal  parts.  The  southern  facade, 
covering  the  whole  stretch  from  the 
canal  to  the  lake,  forms  the  most  im- 
portant boundary  of  the  central  plaza, 
while  its  longer  frontage  looks  west- 
ward over  canal  and  lagoon  upon  the 
broad  park-land  where  lie,  irregularly 
disposed,  the  buildings  not  included  in 
the  main  group.  Thus  he  who  stands 
in  front  of  this  corner,  at  the  point 
where  canal  and  basin  join,  sees  to  his 
right  and  to  his  left  the  two  essential 
divisions  of  the  general  design — the 
court  scheme  and  the  champaign 
scheme — and  the  thought  must  strike 
him  that  in  their  combination,  in  a  pro- 
portion suggested  on  the  one  hand  by 
the  breadth  and  on  the  other  by  the 
length  of  the  grounds,  the  possibilities 
of  the  site  have  been  practically  ex- 
hausted. 

We  must  not  forget  the  peculiar  char- 
acter of  that  site.  Almost  triangular 
in  shape,  it  was,  save  for  a  few  marshy 
hollows,  as  flat  as  a  parade-ground.  It 
lacked  utterly  the  relief  of  rock  or  hill 
or  woodland  grove,  or  even  of  gracious 
slopes  and  terraces.  The  city  lent  it 
no  architectural  background.  Whatever 
was  to  be  done  with  it  had  to  be  done 
with  the  materials  at  hand.  Under 
such  conditions  the  best  thing  to  be 
tried  for  was  to  make  the  landscape  an 
attractive  and  appropriate  setting  for 
the  buildings,  whose  size  and  impor- 
tance could  not  but  be  exaggerated  by 
the  character  of  their  surroundings. 
Here  came  in  the  idea  of  employing 
water  as  the  effective  feature  of  this 
setting,  and  in  so  broad  and  liberal  a 
manner  as  not  only  to  heighten  the 
cliarm  of  the  architect's  work,  but  to 
afford  a  positive  novelty  in  stretching 
throughout  the  ground  a  system  of 
canals  and  channels  navigable  for  pleas- 


414 


THE  MAKING  OF  THE  WHITE  CITY. 


ure-boats — of  making,  in  fact,  a  water- 
show  in  the  very  heart  of  the  land-show. 
Through  the  greater  part  of  the  triangu- 
lar plain  the  body  of  water  created  to 
this  end  wanders  in  graceful  and  natural 
curves,  doubling  on  itself,  stretching 
out  in  pleasant  reaches,  pushing  an  arm 
here,  a  bay  there,  sweeping  around 
islands  large  and  small ;  fringed  its 
whole  length  in  every  bend  and  inlet 
with  the  simple  and  ever  lovely  flora  of 
the  inland  water-side — iris,  pond-lily, 
hellebore,  sedge-grass,  arrowhead,  sweet 
flag,  and  bulrush — and  set  around  with 
clustering  thickets,  and  long  lines  of 
those  lowly  and  grateful  willows  that 
ask  only  a  plenteous  draught  of  water 
to  show  their  pearly  gray-greens  from 
the  first  stirring  of  the  sap  till  the  com- 
ing of  the  Fall. 

This  has  been  the  work  of  Mr.  Henry 
Sargent  Codman,  the  partner  of  Mr. 
F.  L.  Olmstead,  and  it  is  easier  to  ad- 
mire his  success  than  to  realize  the  dif- 
ficulties under  which  he  has  labored. 
He  has  laid  under  contribution  all  the 
lakeside  country  within  many  miles  of 
Chicago,  ransacking  ponds  and  marshes 
for  suitable  stock  for  transplantation, 
and  making  his  selections  with  rare 
skill  and  judgment.  But  the  setting 
out  of  plants  and  shrubs  by  the  scores 
of  thousands  has  been  only  one  part 
of  Mr.  Codman's  arduous  duties.  He 
found  for  his  field  of  usefulness  a  flat 
sand-plain  with  some  three  or  four 
inches  of  superficial  soil — light,  friable 
loam,  excellent  for  quick  growth  and 
not  on  any  account  to  be  wasted.  He 
removed  this  top-coating  of  soil,  piled 
it  up  temporarily  in  convenient  places, 
dug  his  lagoons  and  canals  out  of  the 
sand-plain,  and  then  spread  his  stored- 
up  loam  back  in  the  places  where  he 
wanted  lawns  and  terraces  and  thickets 
and  bosky  islands.  That  is  to  say,  he 
skinned  his  subject,  remodelled  its 
contours,  and  put  the  skin  back. 

As  it  comes  before  the  mighty  front 
of  the  Main  Building,  this  wander- 
ing stream  is  caught  and  held  with- 
in bounds,  until,  submissively  gliding 
amid  the  confines  of  artificiality,  curved 
and  arched  and  trimmed  to  line  and 
angle,  it  plays  its  part  in  the  great  pa- 
rade of  the  court  square. 

The  picture  of  which  it  forms  a  part — 


the  picture  of  the  great  quadrangle — is 
one  not  easily  forgotten,  even  when  it  is 
seen  in  the  crude  bareness  of  its  un- 
finished line  ;  when  only  the  superb  and 
Avell-balanced  lines  of  the  half-sheathed 
buildings  bound  its  broad  spaces  and 
spread  their  long  roof-lines  against  the 
cold  sky.  It  will  be  more  striking,  per- 
haps, when  it  gets  on  its  holiday  drapery 
of  flags  and  awnings,  of  splashing  foun- 
tains and  green  parterres  made  gay 
with  flowers  ;  or  seen  at  night,  in  the 
wonderful  dress  of  electric  light  that  is 
being  woven  for  it,  an  astounding 
tracery  of  fire  that  is  to  outline  every 
niche  and  corner  and  pillar,  every  balus- 
trade and  terrace-edge,  down  to  the 
water-line,  where  a  triplicate  row  of 
lights,  mirrored  in  the  shining  depths, 
will  map  out  the  margin  of  the  basin  ; 
while  from  time  to  time  the  startling, 
all-revealing  glare  of  the  lake-side 
search-lights  travels  across  the  whole 
enclosure — the  bull's-eye  lantern  of  our 
familiar  electrical  giant.  And  yet,  fine 
as  is  the  theatre  it  presents  for  splendid 
pageantry  of  this  sort,  to  those  who 
have  seen  it  in  the  last  stage  of  its 
growth  the  trappings  may  only  cost  the 
great  square  something  of  the  simple 
dignity  it  derives  from  the  architectural 
strength  and  just  proportions  of  the 
buildings  which  wall  it  in.  Properly 
speaking,  the  whole  space  is  one  broad 
avenue  from  the  railroad  terminus  to 
the  Lake,  for  two-thirds  of  its  length 
practically  a  water-way,  with  the  Ad- 
ministration Building  planted  squarely 
midway  of  the  remaining  third  ;  but  to 
view  it  from  a  point  in  the  water-way 
is  inevitably  to  pick  out  three  buildings 
as  salient  boundaries — the  main  build- 
ing, known  as  the  Manufactures  and 
Liberal  Arts  Building,  the  Administra- 
tion Building,  and  the  Agricultural 
Hall.  In  the  first  case  it  is  pre-emi- 
nently the  aggressive  size  that  attracts 
the  eye,  in  the  second  it  is  the  applica- 
tion of  a  striking  form  to  a  peculiarly 
appropriate  situation  ;  in  the  third  what 
captivates  the  attention  is  simply  the 
charm  of  a  beautiful  design  ideally  well 
displayed.  Seen,  as  it  must  first  be 
seen,  across  the  water  ;  in  an  unbroken 
perspective  against  the  clearest  quarter 
of  the  sky,  so  disposed  as  to  be  free 
from  the  dwarfing  influences  of  any 


THE  MAKING  OF  THE  WHITE  CITY. 


415 


other  building  or  group  of  buildings, 
its  candid  classicism  receives  every  ad- 
vantage that  situation  can  give  it,  and 
the  eye  turns  from  the  effect  of  breadth 
and  mass  in  the  main  building  opposite 
to  the  calm  beauty  of  its  graceful  detail 
with  a  sense  of  grateful  and  natural 
transition,  recognizing  a  certain  com- 
plementary relation  between  the  differ- 
ent kinds  of  dignity  expressed  in  the 
huge  structures. 

But  if  these  three  buildings  offer  the 
most  characteristic  and  unforgettable 
fayades  of  the  square,  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  rest  of  the  group  of 
giants  fail  in  effectiveness  or  adequacy 
in  the  matter  of  external  appearance. 
On  the  contrary,  they  carry  out  admi- 
rably the  idea  of  restriction  to  healthy 
classical  lines,  which,  by  mutual  con- 
sent, has  governed  the  designers  of  the 
whole  group  ;  while  they  offer,  individ- 
ually, an  ample  diversity  of  thought  and 
treatment.  But  their  position,  at  the 
inland  end  of  the  court.,  presenting  their 
main  entrances  to  the  Administration 
Building,  has  been  governed  in  some 
measure  by  the  exigencies  of  their  use. 

On  the  southerly  side  stands,  with  its 
annex,  the  Machinery  Hall,  designed  by 
Messrs.  Peabody  &  Stearns  of  Boston, 
covering  in  all  a  space  of  ground  some 
fourteen  hundred  by  five  hundred  feet. 
On  the  northerly  side  are  the  Hall  of 
Mines,  and  Mining,  and  the  Electrical 
Building,  so  called ;  buildings  almost 
twins  in  size  (about  seven  hundred  by 
three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  each),  but 
sharply  differing  in  design — the  Hall  of 
Mines,  with  its  massiveness  of  design 
and  detail,  and  the  Palace  of  Electricity, 
raising  on  high  its  almost  fantastically 
broken  sky-line.  The  one  is  the  work 
of  Mr.  S.  S.  Beman,  the  other  of  Messrs. 
Van  Brunt  &  Howe,  of  Kansas  City. 
Outside  of  these,  or  rather,  around  the 
corner  from  them  is  the  Transportation 
Building,  a  vast  hall  running  nearly  five 
hundred  feet  each  way  from  the  impos- 
ing Roman  arch,  with  its  florid  half- 
oriental  decoration,  which  forms  its  main 
entrance.  This  edifice  stands  as  a  sort 
of  connecting  link  between  the  serried 
ranks  of  the  quadrangle  buildings,  and 
those  which  are  ranged  in  "  open  order  " 
around  the  water  space,  in  the  middle 
of  the  champaign  or  park-like  portion  of 


the  grounds.  These  are,  in  the  order  of 
their  position  :  The  Horticultural  Hall, 
the  Women's  Pavilion,  the  Illinois  State 
Building,  the  permanent  Building  of  the 
Institute  of  Art  (around  and  beyond 
which  are  the  smaller  headquarters  of 
the  various  States  and  foreign  nations), 
and  then,  returning  on  the  lakeward 
side  of  the  lagoon,  the  Fisheries  Build- 
ing and  the  United  States  Government 
Exhibition  Quarters,  which  comprise  a 
large  building,  and  at  the  lake  shore  an 
enclosed  harbor  for  the  naval  exhibit. 
Here  the  long  ellipse  reaches  the  north- 
erly end  of  the  main  building,  and  thus 
connects  with  the  base  of  construction 
formed  by  the  great  court,  and  that 
coign  of  vantage  at  the  confluence  of 
basin  and  canal  from  which  the  eye  first 
takes  in  the  whole  broad  and  varied 
scheme. 

It  is  from  this  point  that  a  compre- 
hensive view  must  be  taken  of  the  ar- 
rangement as  a  whole,  and  of  the  har- 
mony or  discordance  of  its  several  parts. 
Of  the  quadrangle  it  may  be  said  that 
from  the  layman's  point  of  view  criti- 
cism would  be  hypercriticism.  What- 
ever individual  taste  or  scholarship  may 
find  to  question  or  reject  in  the  details 
of  this  marvellous  plaza,  with  its  throng- 
ing fa£ades,  its  spacious  water-ways,  its 
treasures  of  columns  and  fountains ; 
the  people  who  go  out  to  see  a  great 
and  beautiful  sight  would  be  mean  and 
ungracious  if  they  sought  to  weaken  by 
ungenerous  analysis  the  satisfying  im- 
pression of  grandeur  and  beauty,  and 
of  eminent  fitness  and  good  taste,  pro- 
duced by  the  whole  picture.  It  is  a 
noble  design,  broadly  conceived,  and 
carried  out  with  an  amazing  amount  of 
patient  skill  and  conscientious  thought. 

To  turn  to  the  other  and  longer  vista 
of  the  water  parkway  is  to  see  how  sad- 
ly the  interference  of  lower  standards 
can  mar  the  complete  execution  of  an 
exquisite,  artistic  design.  For  almost 
a  mile  the  eye  travels  the  delightfully 
diversified  length  of  the  beautiful  water- 
way which  Messrs.  Olmsted  &  Codman 
have  laid  out,  to  rest  at  last  upon  the 
almost  sacredly  classic  front  of  the  great 
Art  Building,  calm  and  pure  in  its 
beauty  as  the  waters  of  the  lake  from 
which  it  rises.  It  is  a  beauty  of  line 
and  proportion  rather  than  of  decora- 


416 


THE  MAKING  OF  THE  WHITE  CITY. 


tion,  a  beauty  of  balance  and  modula- 
tion, a  beauty  which  must  be  seen  in 
its  completeness,  undisturbed  by  any 
other  spectacle,  if  you  would  feel  the 
full  delight  of  its  serenity.  And  right 
here,  across  full  half  of  the  western  end, 
the  Illinois  State  Building  thrusts  an 
unseemly  and  ill-bred  shoulder  into  the 
view,  like  a  dry  goods  emporium  affront- 
ing a  Greek  temple. 

There  is  another  building  in  the  way 
on  the  eastern  side,  but  it  neither 
affronts  nor  offends.  This  is  the  Fish- 
eries Building,  designed  by  Mr.  Henry 
Ives  Cobb,  and  its  delicate  pavilions, 
with  their  clean,  significant  fines,  and 
their  airy,  skyward  lift,  take  gracefully 
a  subordinate  part  in  the  picture  and 
relieve  a  severity  with  which  they  are 
in  no  wise  out  of  keeping.  Joyousness 
is  the  keynote  of  Mr.  Cobb's  design  ; 
his  is  a  happy  concept  for  a  people's 
summer  pleasure-house,  and  he  per- 
mits himself  something  like  an  approach 
to  architectural  humor  in  his  grotesque 
decorations  of  conventionalized  forms 
of  fishes  and  crustaceans.  It  may  be 
objected  that  the  primary  purpose  of 
the  building  is  scientific,  but  to  this  it 
should  be  urged  that  ichthyology  is  a 
science  which  it  is  hard  to  disconnect 
from  a  certain  fantastic  curiosity,  and 
that,  in  spite  of  what  the  learned  have 
said,  the  humor-loving  human  being 
will  never  take  fish  quite  seriously — and 
moreover,  that  the  man  who  conceives  a 
design  so  wholly  delightful  in  spirit  as 
Mr.  Cobb's,  need  make  no  more  apology 
for  the  lightsomeness  of  his  art  than  he 
does  for  the  gracefulness  of  it. 

Across  a  lake  from  the  Fisheries 
Building  is  the  Building  of  the  United 
States  Government,  which  promises  to 
be  one  of  the  most  valuable  and  impor- 
tant exhibits  in  the  whole  Fair.  It 
ought  to  illuminate  the  soul  of  even  a 
Congressman  from  Darkest  Kansas  with 
new  lights  on  the  selection  and  compen- 
sation of  government  architects. 

The  Horticultural  Hall,  which  is  the 
largest  building  of  the  park  group,  is 
sufficiently  imposing  in  point  of  size,  but 
disappointing  in  its  heavy  and  earth- 
bound  lines,  the  ponderous  effect  of 
which  is  accented  by  the  unnecessarily 
broad  frieze  which  swathes  the  building 
like  a  wide  bandage.  It  is,  however,  only 


fair  to  say  for  Mr.  Jenny's  building  that 
considerations  of  interior  effect  have  had 
more  weight  than  in  the  case  of  any 
other  edifice  (except,  perhaps,  the  Admin- 
istration Building) ;  his  highly  colored 
courts  being  made  a  characteristic  feat- 
ure. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  speaking  of 
certain  unsatisfactory  points  in  this  part 
of  the  exhibition — impossible  because 
the  very  high  standard  of  achievement 
established  elsewhere  provokes  the  un- 
complimentary comparison.  Yet  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  such  criticism  is, 
after  all,  only  comparative.  It  is  mainly 
because  so  much  has  been  done  thor- 
oughly well,  that  the  element  of  dissat- 
isfaction seems  unduly  irritant.  To  use 
the  consoling  axiom  of  Charles  Reade's 
humble  publicist,  "  Where  there's  a  mul- 
titude there's  a  mixture  ; "  and  it  was 
inevitable  that  in  a  work  so  vast  some 
parts  should  be  on  a  lower  plane  than 
others,  both  in  conception  and  execu- 
tion. The  thing  to  be  wondered  at  is 
that  this  undertaking  could  have  gone 
so  far  as  it  has  without  developing  more 
positive  evidence  of  bad  taste  or  lack  of 
skill.  Every  World's  Fair,  I  suppose, 
must  have  its  "lolanthe  in  Butter,"  and 
perhaps  lolanthe  has  her  place  in  the 
art-education  of  a  people.  If  she  has, 
it  may  be  incidentally  remarked  that 
ample  provision  has  been  made  for  fill- 
ing her  place  in  this  instance.  There 
is  a  modern  and  realistic  rilievo  at  the 
base  of  the  great  entrance  of  the  Trans- 
portation Building,  which  does  the  com- 
pletest  justice  to  the  Pullman-car  end  of 
our  civilization. 

I  have  endeavored  to  give  some  idea 
of  what  shape  and  form  the  World's 
Fair  enterprise  had  taken  to  the  appre- 
hension of  the  physical  eye  in  the 
month  of  June,  1892,  without  attempt- 
ing to  discount  the  future,  or  to  do  more 
than  lay  before  my  readers  a  very  brief 
and  untechnical  description  of  a  sight 
that  moved  me,  as  I  think  it  must  have 
moved  any  American  who  saw  it  as  I 
did,  to  a  deep  interest  and  honest  en- 
thusiasm. It  has  been  a  pleasant  but 
a  trying  task,  and  how  full  it  has  been 
of  temptations  to  error  and  to  exagger- 
ation can  only,  I  think,  be  understood 
by  the  man,  who,  as  a  boy,  has  peered 


THE  MAKING  OF  THE  WHITE  CITY. 


417 


through  a  hole  in  the  circus  tent,  and 
whispered  to  his  wide-eyed  companions 
a  fragmentary  and  hurried  account  of 
the  dazzling  show  in  process  of  prepa- 
ration. He,  I  know,  will  forgive  me,  if 
I  have  shown  more  earnestness  than  art 
in  striving  to  picture  to  him  the  effect 
produced  by  this  strange  assemblage 
of  beautiful,  gracious,  and  inspiriting 
architectural  forms — at  the  first  sight 
of  the  unfinished  White  City  of  Pal- 
aces. 

It  has  been  difficult  to  convey  the  ef- 
fect of  what  has  been  done  :  it  would 
be  impossible  to  convey  the  effect  of  the 
doing  of  it.  It  is  a  great  exhibition  in 
itself — the  concentration  of  human  en- 
ergy and  intelligence  which  has  made 
this  work  possible.  The  men  who  are 
doing  it  are  gathered  together  from  dis- 
tant cities,  and  for  the  months  or  years 
that  their  task  may  require  of  them, 
they  have  given  themselves  up  as  abso- 
lutely as  soldiers  give  themselves  to 
their  duty.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  army  of 
laborers  with  a  staff  of  artists  and  archi- 
tects that  is  under  the  command  of  Mr. 
D.  H.  Burnham,  the  Chief  of  Construc- 
tion, a  man  born  for  generalship,  strong 
in  executive  ability  and  in  the  capacity 


for  inspiring  loyalty  and  devotion.  It 
is  through  his  constructive  and  execu- 
tive genius  that  the  admirably  able 
corps  of  architects  and  designers  gath- 
ered together  at  Chicago  are  enabled  to 
realize  their  splendid  fancies  in  all  the 
strength  of  their  ambition.  Within 
the  walls  of  the  great  enclosure  these 
men  lead,  for  months  at  a  time,  the  life 
of  military  officers  in  the  conduct  of 
a  campaign,  living  in  barracks,  their 
days'  work  beginning  with  their  waking 
and  ending  only  with  too  long  deferred 
sleep. 

They  have  worked  so  hard  and  so 
long  together,  at  home  and  on  this  sandy 
plain,  that,  like  all  old  comrades  of  war, 
they  have  a  talk  of  their  own,  and 
among  themselves  they  sometimes  speak 
of  a  certain  "microbe,"  the  germ  of 
something  which,  with  soldierlike  lev- 
ity, they  figure  as  a  disease — the  enthu- 
siasm— the  uncontrollable,  action-im- 
pelling enthusiasm  for  their  great  en- 
terprise which  sustains  them  through 
this  long  strain  on  body  and  mind  ;  the 
enthusiasm  which  seizes  upon  all  who 
watch  them  at  their  grand  toil,  and 
which  I  wish  were  mine  to  communi- 
cate in  telling  of  what  they  are  doing. 


STATISTICAL  NOTES  OF  THE  WORLD'S   FAIE  BUILDINGS  AT  CHICAGO. 

(These  figures  are  approximately  correct,  within  a  foot  or  so ;  fractions  are  suppressed  for  the  sake 
of  simplicity  ;  and  allowance  must  be  made  for  slight  alterations  in  plan.) 

THE  GROUNDS  are  a  little  less  than  a  mile-and-a-half  in  length.  In  width  they  are 
about  a  third  of  a  mile  at  the  narrow  end,  and  about  four-fifths  of  a  mile  at  the  broad  or 
south  end.  Speaking  roughly,  this  is  about  equivalent  to  as  much  of  the  lower  end  of 
New  York  City  as  would  be  separated  from  the  upper  portion  by  a  line  drawn  from  the 
foot  of  Canal  Street  and  North  River  to  the  foot  of  Rutgers  Street  and  East  River. 
They  contain  more  than  half  a  thousand  acres,  exclusive  of  the  Midway  Plaisance,  an  an- 
nex running  eastward  behind  the  Women's  Pavilion. 

THE  MAIN  COTJRT,  Plaza  or  Cour  d'Honneur  is  a  quadrangle  2,000  by  700  feet.  It  con- 
tains the  Great  Basin,  1,100  by  350  feet ;  the  MacMonnies  Fountain,  the  centre-piece  of  a 
basin  150  feet  in  diameter  ;  and  terminates  at  the  lake  end  in  the  Peristyle  designed  by 
Mr.  C.  B.  Atwood,  which  is  60  feet  high  and  is  composed  of  four  rows  of  pillars. 

THE  MANUFACTURES  AND  LIBERAL  ARTS  BUILDING  is  1,687  by  787  feet  in  size.  It 
covers  about  thirty-one  acres.  The  great  main  roof  covers  an  area  1,400  by  385  feet,  and 
has  an  extreme  height  of  210  feet.  This  is  between  55  and  60  feet  higher  than  the  Great 
Arch  of  the  Machinery  Building  in  the  recent  Paris  Exposition.  It  is  only  10  feet  less 
in  height  than  the  great  chimney  of  the  New  York  Steam-Heating  Company.  It  is  just  6 
feet  lower  than  the  top  of  the  spire  of  Grace  Church,  New  York.  It  is  11  feet  lower 
than  the  Bunker  Hill  shaft  at  Boston.  It  would  hold  the  Vendome  column  mounted  on 
a  74  foot  pedestal.  The  seating  capacity  of  the  building  is  estimated  at  over  200,000 
people.  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  holds  about  54,000,  St.  Paul's  in  London  less  than  26,000, 
and  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in  New  York  has  a  capacity  of  5,000  people.  The 
entrances  to  this  building  are  40  feet  wide  by  80  feet  high.  Its  ground  plan  is  much  more 


418 


THE  MAKING  OF   THE  WHITE  CITY. 


than  twice  the  size  of  that  of  the  Pyramid  of  Cheops.  It  is  the  better  part  of  a  hundred 
feet  longer  than  the  main  span  of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge.  It  is  nearly  two  and  one-half 
times  as  long  and  more  than  two  and  one-half  times  as  wide  as  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 
The  architect  is  Mr.  George  B.  Post,  of  New  York. 

THE  AGRICULTURAL  BUILDING  is  800  by  500  feet.  Its  central  dome  is  130  feet  in 
height  and  100  in  diameter.  The  corner  domes  are  between  90  and  100  feet  high.  The 
cornice-line  is  65  feet  high.*  Messrs.  McKim,  Meade  &  White  are  the  architects. 
The  statuary  adornments  of  the  building  are  designed  by  Mr.  Philip  Martiny.  The 
annex  to  this  building  is  550  by  300  feet. 

THE  MACHINERY  HALL  is  846  by  492  feet.  Its  annex  550  by  490  feet.  These  dimen- 
sions do  not  include  boiler  house,  machine  house,  etc.  The  architects  are  Messrs.  Pea- 
body  &  Stearns,  of  Boston. 

THE  ADMINISTRATION  BUILDING  is  260  feet  square.  The  dome  is  275  feet  high  exter- 
nally ;  the  internal  dome  is  190  feet  in  height.  That  is,  it  is  about  as  high  on  the  out- 
side as  Trinity  Church  spire  in  New  York.  The  dome  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington  is 
287  feet  in  height,  and  internally  considerably  smaller  than  that  of  this  building.  Mr. 
Richard  M.  Hunt,  of  New  York,  is  the  architect ;  Mr.  Karl  Bitter,  the  statuary. 

THE  HALL  OP  MINES  AND  MINING  is  700  by  300  feet,  and  the  architect  is  Mr.  S.  S.  Be- 
man,  of  Chicago. 

THE  ELECTRICAL  BUILDING  is  690  by  345  feet.  The  four  corner  towers  are  169  feet 
high.  The  longitudinal  nave  is  115  feet  wide  by  114  feet  high.  Messrs.  Van  Brunt  & 
Howe,  of  Kansas  City,  are  the  architects. 

THE  TRANSPORTATION  BUILDING  is  960  by  256  feet,  with  a  one-story  annex  covering 
about  9  acres.  The  cupola  is  165  feet  in  height.  Messrs.  Adler  &  Sullivan,  of  Chicago, 
are  the  architects. 

THE  HORTICULTURAL  BUILDING  is  998  by  250  feet.  The  dome  is  187  feet  in  diameter 
and  113  feet  high.  Mr.  W.  L.  B.  Jenny,  of  Chicago,  is  the  architect. 

THE  WOMAN'S  PAVILION  is  388  by  199  feet.  The  architect  is  Miss  Sophia  G.  Hayden, 
of  Chicago. 

THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  INSTITUTE  OF  FINE  ARTS  (permanent)  is  500  by  320  feet,  with  a 
dome  125  feet  high.  The  architect  is  Mr.  C.  B.  Atwood. 

THE  FISHERIES  BUILDING  is  over  1,000  feet  in  extreme  length,  the  main  building 
being  365  by  165  feet,  flanked  by  two  circular  pavilions,  each  135  feet  in  diameter,  con- 
nected by  arcades.  Its  water  capacity  is  140,000  gallons,  exclusive  of  reservoirs.  The 
architect  is  Mr.  Henry  Ives  Cobb. 

OTHER  BUILDINGS  are  the  Dairy  Building,  200  by  95  feet ;  the  Government  Building, 
415  by  345  feet ;  the  Forestry  Building,  500  by  200  feet ;  the  Stock  Pavilion,  440  by  280 
feet,  and  the  Illinois  Building,  450  by  160. 

•  By  general  agreement  among  the  architects,  65  feet  is  accepted  as  the  standard  height  of  the  main  fat ade  in 
most  of  the  buildings. 


Going  Home  from  Work. 


STORIES  OF  A  WESTERN  TOWN. 


691 


two  things  she  wanted,  and  one  I  did 
want  myself  ;  but  the  other — I  couldn't 
seem  to  bring  my  mind  to  it,  no — any- 
how !  We  hadn't  any  children  but  one 
that  died  four  years  ago,  a  little  baby. 
Ever  since  she  died  my  wife  has  had  a 
longing  to  have  a  stained-glass  window, 
with  the  picture,  you  know,  of  Christ 
blessing  little  children,  put  into  our 
little  church.  In  Memoriam,  you  know. 
Seems  as  if,  now  we've  lost  the  baby,  we 
think -all  the  more  of  the  church.  May- 
be she  was  a  sort  of  idol  to  us.  Yes, 
sir,  that's  one  thing  my  wife  fairly 
longed  for.  We've  saved  our  money, 
what  we  could  save  ;  there  are  so  many 
calls  ;  during  the  sickness,  last  winter, 
the  sick  needed  so  many  things,  and  it 
didn't  seem  right  for  us  to  neglect  them 
just  for  our  baby's  window ;  and — the 
money  went.  The  other  thing  was  dif- 
ferent. My  wife  has  got  it  into  her 
head  I  have  a  fine  voice.  And  she's 
higher  church  than  I  am  ;  so  she  has 
always  wanted  me  to  intone.  I  told 
her  I'd  look  like  a  fool  intoning,  and 
there's  no  mistake  about  it,  I  do  !  But 
she  couldn't  see  it  that  way.  It  was 
'most  the  only  point  wherein  we  dif- 
fered ;  and  last  spring,  when  she  was  so 
sick,  and  I  didn't  know  but  I'd  lose  her, 
it  was  dreadful  to  me  to  think  how  I'd 
crossed  her.  So,  Mr.  Lossing,  when 
she  got  well  I  promised  her,  for  a  thank- 
offering,  I'd  intone.  And  I  have  ever 
since.  My  people  know  me  so  well,  and 
we've  been  through  so  much  together, 
that  they  didn't  make  any  fuss — though 
they  are  not  high — fact  is,  I'm  not  high 
myself.  But  they  were  kind  and  con- 
siderate, and  I  got  on  pretty  well  at 
home ;  but  when  I  came  to  rise  up  in 
that  great  edifice,  before  that  cultured 
and  intellectual  audience,  so  finely 
dressed,  it  did  seem  to  me  I  could  not 
do  it !  I  was  sorely  tempted  to  break 
my  promise.  I  was,  for  a  fact."  He 
drew  a  long  breath.  "I  just  had  to 
pray  for  grace,  or  I  never  would  have 
pulled  through.  I  had  the  sermon  my 
wife  likes  best  with  me  ;  but  I  know  it 
lacks — it  lacks — it  isn't  what  you  need  ! 
I  was  dreadfully  scared  and  I  felt  mis- 
erable when  I  got  up  to  preach  it — and 


then  to  think  that  you  were — but  it  is 
the  Lord's  doing  and  marvellous  in  our 
eyes  !  I  don't  know  what  Maggie  will 
say  when  I  tell  her  we  can  get  the 
window.  The  best  she  hoped  was  I'd 
bring  back  enough  so  the  church  could 
pay  me  eighteen  dollars  they  owe  on 
my  salary.  And  now — it's  wonderful ! 
Why,  Mr.  Lossing,  I've  been  thinking 
so  much  and  wanting  so  to  get  that 
window  for  her,  that,  hearing  that  the 
dean  wanted  some  carpentering  done, 
I  thought  maybe,  as  I'm  a  fair  carpen- 
ter— that  was  my  trade  once,  sir — I'd 
ask  him  to  let  me  do  the  job.  I  waa 
aware  there  is  nothing  in  our  rules — I 
mean  our  canons — to  prevent  me,  and 
nobody  need  know  I  was  the  rector  of 
Matin's  Junction,  because  I  would  come 
just  in  my  overalls.  There  is  a  cheap 
place  where  I  could  lodge,  and  I  could 
feed  myself  for  almost  nothing,  living 
is  so  cheap.  I  was  praying  about  that, 
too.  Now,  your  noble  generosity  will 
enable  me  to  donate  what  they  owe  on 
my  salary,  and  get  the  window  too !  " 

"  Take  my  advice,"  said  Harry,  "  do- 
nate nothing,  say  nothing  about  this 
gift ;  I  will  take  care  of  the  warden,  and 
I  can  answer  for  the  dean." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  dean,  "  on  the  whole, 
Gilling,  you  would  better  say  noth- 
ing, I  think ;  Mr.  Lossing  is  more 
afraid  of  a  reputation  for  generosity 
than  the  small-pox." 

The  older  man  looked  at  Harry  with 
glistening  eyes  of  admiration ;  with 
what  Christian  virtues  of  humility  he 
was  endowing  that  embarrassed  young 
man,  it  is  painful  to  imagine. 

The  dean's  eyes  twinkled  above  his 
handkerchief  which  hid  his  mouth,  as 
he  rose  to  make  his  farewells.  He 
shook  hands,  warmly.  "  God  bless 
you,  Harry,"  said  he.  Gilling,  too, 
wrung  Harry's  hands ;  he  was  seeking 
some  parting  word  of  gratitude,  but  he 
could  only  choke  out,  "  I  hope  you  will 
get  married  some  time,  Mr.  Lossing, 
then  you'll  understand." 

"Well,"  said  Harry,  as  the  door 
closed,  and  he  flung  out  his  arms  and 
his  chest  in  a  huge  sigh,  "I  do  be- 
lieve it  was  better  than  the  puppies  ! " 


THE   DECORATION   OF  THE   EXPOSITION. 


By  F.  D.  Millet. 


fHE  grand  style, 
the  perfect  pro- 
portions,  and 
the  magnificent 
dimensions  o  f 
the  buildings  of 
the  World's  Co- 
lumbian Expo- 
sition, excite  a 
twofold  senti- 
ment in  the 
mind  of  the  vis- 
itor—  wonder  and  admiration  at  the 
beauties  of  the  edifices,  and  regret  and 
disappointment  that  they  are  not  to  re- 
main as  monuments  to  the  good  taste, 
knowledge,  and  skill  of  the  men  who 
built  them,  and  as  a  permanent  memo- 
rial of  the  event  which  the  Exposition 
is  intended  to  celebrate.  This  complex 
feeling  is  a  natural  one,  and  is  perfect- 
ly comprehensible  in  the  presence  of 
the  noble  porticos  and  colonnades,  the 
graceful  towers,  superb  domes,  and  im- 
posing fa9ades.  Previous  exhibitions, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  that  in 
Vienna  in  1873,  have  been  confessedly 
ephemeral  in  the  character  of  their  con- 
struction, and  have  shown  a  distinctly 
playful  and  festal  style  of  architect- 
ure, with  little  attempt  at  seriousness 
or  dignity  of  design.  The  monumental 
character  of  the  group  of  Exposition 
buildings  in  Chicago  is  not  the  result 
of  accident,  but  of  deliberate  fore- 
thought and  wise  judgment. 

In  the  heat  of  the  fever  of  construc- 
tion, which  has  spread  like  a  contagion 
from  the  rocks  of  .Mount  Desert  to  the 
white  sands  of  the  Pacific  coast,  a  new 
race  of  architects;  has  sprung  up,  fer- 
tile in  resources  and  clever  in  execu- 
tion, but  with  little  well-grounded 
knowledge  of  the  real  principles  of 
their  art.  Beginning  with  the  bulbous 
conglomerations  of  material  which  have 
been  forced  upon  a  long-suffering  pub- 
lic by  the  Government  architects,  and 
ending  with  consciously  picturesque 
structures  that  hint  more  of  the  ter- 


rors of  mediaeval  dungeons  than  of  the 
comforts  of  domestic  life,  and  bear  the 
title  of  villa  but  the  aspect  of  milita- 
ry strongholds,  the  architecture  of  the 
past  two  decades  has,  with  some  nota- 
ble exceptions,  been  distinguished  by  in- 
creasing ingenuity  in  imitation  rather 
than  the  development  of  skill  in  adap- 
tation. It  would  be  wrorse  than  fool- 
ish to  demand  that  an  architect  should 
be  thoroughly  original,  as  it  would  be 
to  ask  an  artist  to  cut  loose  from  all 
the  proven  principles  and  traditions  of 
his  profession,  and  invent  an  entirely 
new  method  and  a  novel  system.  What 
may  be  reasonably  asked  of  an  archi- 
tect is  that  he  have  an  individual  point 
of  view,  and  modernize  the  adaptation 
of  old  principles  without  disturbing 
the  real  spirit  of  the  same ;  that  he  de- 
velop and  extend  these  principles  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  modern  life  ; 
that,  in  fact,  he  work  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible in  the  same  direction  that  the 
masters  of  ancient  architecture  would 
have  done  if  they  had  been  dealing 
with  modern  problems  of  design,  plan, 
and  construction.  There  are  certain 
immutable  laws  of  harmony  and  pro- 
portion which  have  always  governed 
and  will  always  rule  in  architecture  as 
in  art,  and  though  they  are  disregard- 
ed and  tampered  with  for  the  sake  of 
novelty  and  so-called  originality,  this 
faithlessness  always  meets  its  just  pun- 
ishment in  the  result.  The  majority  of 
modern  architects  have,  in  these  days 
of  abundant  photographs,  models,  and 
measurements,  been  led  to  cater  to  the 
vanity  of  half-educated  clients,  and  have 
engrafted  French  chateaux  on  Roman- 
esque palaces,  have  invented  wonder- 
fully ingenious  but  viciously  hybrid 
combinations,  one  of  which  has  been 
aptly  described  as  "  Queen  Anne  in 
front  and  Mary  Ann  in  the  back."  The 
precept  and  example  of  the  scholarly 
men  in  the  profession  have  been  power- 
less to  stem  this  tide  of  ill-considered 
design,  and  nothing  short  of  gradual 


ENGRAVED    BY    J.  W.   EVANS. 


Figure  Emblematic  of  the  Textile  Arts,   by  Robert  Reid,   in   One  of  the  Domes  of  the   Manufactures  Building. 


VOL.  XII.— 76 


694 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


regeneration  and  slow  revulsion  of  sen- 
timent against  this  tendency  has  been 
hoped  for  until  the  present  year. 

Mr.  D.  H.  Burnham,  the  Director  of 
Works  of  the  World's  Columbian  Ex- 
position, took  the  first  important  step 
toward  the  renaissance  of  the  true  spirit 


'Autumn,"  Panel    by  G.  W.  Maynard,  in  the  Agricultural  Building. 


of  architectui-e  in  this  country  by  ignor- 
ing all  precedents  of  competition,  and 
selecting  as  associates  certain  archi- 
tects and  firms  whose  records  estab- 
lished their  position  as  true  leaders  of 
the  profession.  These  architects,  after 
studious  contemplation  of  the  situation, 


decided  on  the  adoption  of  a  general 
classical  style  for  the  buildings,  sub- 
ject, of  course,  to  such  modifications  as 
were  found  necessary  by  the  require- 
ments of  each  individual  case.  The  re- 
sult is  a  satisfactory  and  sufficient  proof 
of  the  wisdom  of  Mr.  Burnhanr  s  action, 
and  there  is  now  before  the  coun- 
try a  more  extensive  and  instruc- 
tive object-lesson  in  architecture 
than  has  ever  been  presented  to 
any  generation  in  any  country 
since  the  most  flourishing  period 
of  architectural  effort.  The  edu- 
cational importance  of  this  feat- 
ure of  the  great  Exposition  can 
scarcely  be  over  -  estimated,  and 
its  salutary  influence  on  the  fut- 
ure architecture  of  this  country 
can  be  prophesied  with  absolute 
certainty.  The  scheme  has  not 
been  considered  complete,  how- 
ever, nor  the  lesson  properly  em- 
phasized, without  the  necessary 
adjuncts  of  the  two  arts  so  close- 
ly allied  to  architecture,  sculpt- 
ure and  painting,  both  of  which 
have  been  drawn  upon  with  free- 
dom and  good  judgment  to  sup- 
plement and  enrich  the  archi- 
tectural features.  Sculpture  has 
been  employed  far  more  exten- 
sively than  its  sister  art,  for  the 
very  good  reason  that  few  of  the 
buildings  have  been  constructed 
with  any  intention  of  carrying 
the  interiors  to  any  high  degree 
of  finish.  It  would  have  been 
impracticable,  under  the  circum- 
stances, to  bring  the  interiors  up 
to  the  same  perfection  as  the  ex- 
teriors, even  with  the  cheapest 
material,  for  it  would  have  added 
an  enormous  per  cent,  to  the  cost 
of  construction.  The  architects 
have,  therefore,  in  most  cases 
frankly  accepted  the  situation 
and  confined  their  efforts  at  em- 
bellishment to  the  facades,  con- 
sidering the  buildings  simply  as 
great  sketches  of  possible  permanent 
structures,  confessedly  utilitarian  as  to 
the  interior,  but  as  sumptuous  and  sug- 
gestive in  exterior  treatment  as  the  con- 
ditions permitted.  Indeed,  this  was  the 
only  reasonable  view  to  take,  both  be- 
cause of  the  enormous  size  of  the  build- 


THE  DECORATION  OF  THE  EXPOSITION. 


695 


le-work,"   by  J.  Alden  Weir,   in  One  of  the  Domes  of  the   Manufactures  Building. 


ings  and  the  complex  uses  for  which 
they  are  intended.  The  exhibits  them- 
selves are  necessarily  such  prominent 
features  of  the  interiors  that  they  only 
need  a  background  of  more  or  less  sim- 
ple character  to  complete,  with  the 
elaborate  installation  which  is  being 
carried  on,  quite  as  agreeable  a  decora- 
tion scheme  as  might  be  reasonably  ex- 
pected on  such  an  enormous  scale. 

Without  going  into  details  of  con- 
struction, it  is  proper  to  call  attention 


to  one  feature  of  the  interiors,  notably 
of  the  Machinery  and  Manufactures 
and  Liberal  Arts  buildings,  where  the 
architect  and  the  engineer  have  joined 
forces  and  produced  a  result  far  ahead 
of  anything  before  accomplished.  I  re- 
fer to  the  wonderfully  beautiful  iron- 
work of  these  buildings,  which  satisfies 
to  an  eminent  degree  both  the  utilita- 
rian and  aesthetic  requirements.  Mr. 
C.  B.  Atwood,  Designer  in  Chief,  co- 
operated with  Mr.  E.  C.  Shankland, 


696 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


Forging,"   Figure    by  E.   E.  Simmons,   in  the   Dome  of  the   East  Portal,   Manufactures  Building, 


Chief  Engineer,  in  working  out  a  plan 
of  construction  of  the  immense  trusses 
with  the  connecting  girders,  purlins, 
and  braces,  which  has  been  carried  out 
in  great  perfection.  The  ugly  forms  of 
ordinary  bridge  builders'  construction, 
which  have  hitherto  been  endured  as 
necessary  for  rigidity  and  strength, 
have  been  largely  eliminated,  and 


graceful  curves,  well-balanced  propor- 
tions, and  harmonious  lines  unite  to 
make  the  iron- work  beautiful  in  itself, 
a  distinctly  ornamental  feature  of  the 
interiors.  Thus,  without  flourish  of 
trumpets,  a  great  advance  has  been 
made,  and  the  great  truth  promulgated 
that  the  useful  may  be  beautiful  even 
in  engineering.  Painting  of  an  artistic 


ENGRAVED    BV    VAN    NESS. 

'Ceramic  Painting,"   by  Kenyon  Cox,   in  a  Dome  of  the   East  Portal,   Manufactures  Building. 
(From  an  unfinished  sketch.) 


698 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


"  Pearl,"  by  Walter  Shirlaw,   in  a  Dome  of  the   North  Portal,   Manufactures  Building. 


character  has  been  confined  for  the 
most  part  to  a  few  domes  and  panels  in 
various  pavilions,  to  wall  spaces  under 
colonnades  and  porticos,  and  to  the 
two  or  three  interiors  in  Avhich  there  is 
sufficiently  high  finish  to  permit  of  mu- 
ral decoration. 

The  Administration  Building,  by  Mr. 
Richard  M.  Hunt,  which  was  built  for 
the  uses  of  the  World's  Columbian  Com- 


mission with  the  numerous  branches  of 
its  executive  force,  is  the  real  focus  of 
the  group  of  buildings,  not  only  from 
its  position  in  the  centre  of  a  grand 
plaza  of  enormous  extent,  but  on  ac- 
count of  its  monumental  character. 
The  portals  and  the  angles  of  this  build- 
ing are  adorned  with  groups  of  sculpt- 
ure by  Mr.  Carl  Bitter,  of  New  York, 
and  spandrels  and  panels,  both  outside 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


699 


"The  Telephone,"   by  J.  Carroll   Beckwith,   In  a  Dome  of  the  North   Portal,   Manufactures  Building. 


and  inside,  are  enriched  by  designs  by 
the  same  sculptor.  The  dome,  which 
is  two  hundred  and  sixty-rive  feet  high, 
is  truncated  at  the  top  and  is  lighted 
by  a  great  eye  forty  feet  in  diameter. 
The  interior  of  this  dome  around  the 
great  eye,  a  surface  of  the  approximate 
dimensions  of  35  x  300  feet,  is  to  be  cov- 


ered with  a  figure  composition  painted 
by  Mr.  W.  L.  Dodge,  representing  in 
general  terms  the  figure  of  a  god  on  a 
high  Olympian  throne  crowning  with 
wreaths  of  laurel  the  representatives 
of  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  flanked  by 
figures  of  Agriculture,  Commerce,  and 
Peace.  A  Greek  canopy,  supported  by 


700 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


flying  female  figures,  contrasts  agree- 
ably with  the  clear  blue  of  the  skv 
background,  against  which  the  princi- 
pal groups  are  shown  in  strong  relief. 
Three  winged  horses  drawing  a  vehicle 
with  a  model  of  the  Parthenon,  troops 
of  warriors  cheering  the  victors  in  the 
peaceful  strife  of  the  arts,  and  a  wealth 
of  minor  figures,  make  up  the  compo- 
sition, which  is  bold  and  imposing  not 
only  in  magnitude  but  in  line  [pp.  705- 
6-8].  The  interior  walls  of  the  great 
Rotunda  are  tinted  so  as  to  give  the  ef- 
fects of  colored  marbles  and  mosaics,  and 
under  the  outside  the  massive  white  Dor- 
ic columns  have  a  background  of  Pom- 
peian  richness  of  tone.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  Mr.  Dodge's  composition  in  the 
Administration  Building,  neither  of  the 
other  buildings  fronting  on  the  grand 
plaza  has  any  purely  artistic  decora- 
tion, although  the  hemicycle  and  por- 
tions of  the  Electricity  Building,  and 
the  extensive  arcades  of  the  Machinery 
Building,  are  all  treated  with  flat  colors 
to  supplement  this  architectural  orna- 
ment, the  former  by  Mr.  Maitland  Arm- 
strong, the  latter  by  Mr.  E.  E.  Garnsey, 
of  F.  J.  Sarmiento  &  Co.  Across  the 
south  canal,  however,  a  blaze  of  richly 
colored  panels  in  the  pavilions  of  the 
Agricultural  Building,  with  here  and 
there  a  figure  of  an  animal  half  hidden  by 
the  superb  Corinthian  columns,  shows 
where  Mr.  G.  W.  Maynard  and  his  as- 
sistant, Mr.  H.  T.  Schladermundt,  have 
converted,  by  the  magic  of  their  art, 
the  uninteresting  plaster  surfaces  into  a 
series  of  elaborate  pictures.  This  de- 
coration bas  been  planned  with  great  at- 
tention to  the  appropriate  character  of 
its  individual  features.  There  are  two 
pavilions  at  either  end  of  the  building, 
with  a  large  doorway  breaking  the  wall 
into  two  panels,  each  one  of  which  has 
a  dado  of  elaborate  ornament,  a  narrow 
border  of  conventionalized  Indian  corn 
on  each  side,  and  great  garlands  of  fruit 
on  top  framing  an  oblong  rectangle  of 
rich  Pompeian  red  with  a  colossal  fe- 
male figure  of  one  of  the  seasons  [p. 
694].  Above  the  two  panels,  and  con- 
necting them  by  a  band  of  color,  is  a 
frieze  with  rearing  horses,  bulls,  oxen 
drawing  a  cart  of  ancient  form,  and 
other  small  groups  of  agricultural  sub- 
jects. The  focus  of  the  decorative 


scheme  is  naturally  at  the  main  portico, 
the  entrance  to  the  Rotunda,  called  the 
Temple  of  Ceres,  with  the  statue  of  the 
goddess  in  the  mysterious  twilight  of 
the  graceful  and  impressive  interior. 
The  portico  is  treated  on  much  the  same 
plan  as  the  side  pavilions,  but  as  it 
provides  a  much  greater  area  of  wall 
surface,  Mr.  Maynard  has  been  able  to 
introduce  a  richer  combination  of  col- 
ors and  a  greater  variety  of  figures. 
"  Abundance  "  and  "  Fertility,"  two  co- 
lossal female  figures,  occupy,  with  the 
richly  ornamented  borders,  great  flat 
niches  on  either  side  of  the  entrance, 
and  are  flanked  in  turn  011  the  side-walls 
by  the  figure  of  King  Triptolemus,  the 
fabled  inventor  of  the  plough,  and  the 
goddess  Cybele,  symbolical  of  the  fer- 
tility of  the  earth,  the  one  in  a  chariot 
drawn  by  dragons,  the  other  leading  a 
pair  of  lions.  These  figures,  as  well  as 
those  in  the  four  porticos,  are  treated 
in  a  broad,  simple  manner,  so  that  they 
carry  perfectly  to  a  great  distance  and 
at  the  same  time  lose  nothing  by  close 
inspection. 

The  sumptuousness  of  the  color  dec- 
oration is  balanced  by  the  lavish  abun- 
dance of  sculpture  work  which  fills  the 
pediments  and  crowns  the  piers  and 
pylons,  and,  in  general  terms,  the  main 
features  of  the  facades.  The  main  ped- 
iment is  by  Mr.  Larkiii  G.  Mead  ;  and 
the  other  statues — figures  of  abundance 
with  cornucopiae,  a  series  of  graceful 
maidens  holding  signs  of  the  Zodiac, 
groups  of  four  females  representing  the 
quarters  of  the  globe  supporting  a  hor- 
oscope, and  various  colossal  agricultu- 
ral animals — are  all  by  the  hand  of  Mr. 
Philip  Martiiiy,  who  joins  Mr.  Olin  L. 
Warner  in  supplementing  the  architect- 
ural ornamentation  of  the  Art  Build- 
ing with  various  figures  and  bas-reliefs. 
Dominating  the  grand  outlines  of  the 
edifice,  perched  high  on  the  flat  dome, 
is  the  gilded  figure  of  Diana,  by  Mr. 
Augustus  St.  Gaudens,  familiar  as  the 
finial  of  the  tower  of  the  Madison 
Square  Garden  in  New  York,  a  fitting 
apex  of  the  monumental  structure. 

The  north  front  of  the  Agricultural 
Building,  with  the  peristyle  and  the 
south  fayade  of  the  Manufactures  and 
Liberal  Arts  Building,  form  a  grand 
court  of  honor,  so  to  speak,  facing  the 


1 


"Decoration,"   Figure  by  C.  S.   Reinhart. 


702 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


Administration  Building,  which  may  be 
appropriately  termed  the  Gateway  of 
the  Exhibition,  for  it  rises  directly  in 
front  of  the  Terminal  Station,  a  build- 
ing of  vast  proportions  and  noble  as- 
pect, designed  to  accommodate  the 
thousands  of  visitors  who  reach  the 
Fair  by  the  numerous  lines  of  railways 
concentrated  at  this  point.  Six  rostral 
columns,  surmounted  by  a  figure  of 
Neptune,  by  Mr.  Johannes  Gelert,  ac- 
cent this  court  at  different  points.  Mr. 
Frederick  MacMonnies's  fin-de-siecle 
colossal  fountain  fills  the  west  end  of 
the  basin  with  a  busy  group  of  symbol- 
ical figures  and  a  flood  of  rushing  water. 
Opposite,  at  the  east  end  of  the  glitter- 
ing sheet  of  water  which  reflects  the 
architectural  glories  of  the  colonnades, 
the  dignified,  simple  statue  of  the  Re- 
public, by  Mr.  D.  C.  French,  towers 
high  in  air,  relieved  against  the  beau- 
tiful screen  of  the  Peristyle,  with  its 
forest  of  columns  showing  clear  cut 
against  the  blue  waters  of  the  lake. 
Every  column  and  every  pier  of  the 
Peristyle  has  its  crowning  figure,  the 
work  of  Mr.  Theodore  Baur,  and  the 
great  central  arch,  or  Water-Grate  sup- 
ports a  colossal  Quadriga  executed  bv 
Mr.  D.  C,  French  and  Mr.  Edward  C. 
Potter,  the  former  undertaking  the  fig- 
ure work,  and  the  latter  the  horses. 
Two  pair  of  horses,  led  by  classical  fe- 
male figures,  draw  a  high  chariot  with 
a  male  figure  symbolizing  the  spirit  of 
discovery  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
pages  on  horseback  flank  the  chariot  on 
either  side,  enriching  the  composition 
so  that  it  presents  a  well-sustained  mass 
from  every  possible  point  of  view.  This 
group  is  an  achievement  well  worthy 
of  its  situation  as  the  dominating  em- 
bellishment of  the  great  court  with  its 
wealth  of  sculpture  and  ornament. 

The  terraces  afford  another  inviting 
field  for  open-air  decoration.  Numer- 
ous pedestals  have  tempted  the  skill  of 
the  sculptors  of  the  Quadriga  to  pro- 
duce distinguished  types  of  the  horse 
and  the  bull,  and  formal  antique  vases 
on  the  balustrade  and  reproductions 
of  the  masterpieces  of  ancient  statu- 
ary break  the  long  lines  of  parapet 
and  greensward.  The  graceful  bridges 
spanning  the  canals  are  guarded  by 
sculptured  wild  animals  native  of  the 


United  States,  part  of  them  by  Mr.  Ed- 
ward Kemeys,  others  by  Mr.  A.  P.  Proc- 
tor, in  appropriate  contrast  to  the  clas- 
sicality  of  their  surroundings  and  sug- 
gesting future  possibilities  in  sculpture 
inspired  by  similar  motives.  The  eye 
cannot  take  in  at  a  glance  the  sumptu- 
ous beauties  of  this  grand  court,  even- 
in  its  ragged  state  of  partial  finish,  but 
roves  from  statue  to  column,  portal 
to  terrace,  resting  agreeably  on  broad 
masses  of  rich  color  and  on  the  gleam- 
ing reflections  in  the  basin.  Imagina- 
tion can  scarcely  picture  the  scene  with 
the  addition  of  the  festal  features  of 
fluttering  banners,  rich  awnings,  gayly 
decorated  craft  giving  life  and  move- 
ment to  the  water  front,  and  every- 
where the  crowd  of  visitors  all  on  recre- 
ation, bent. 

The  casual  observer  might  well  be 
pardoned  for  failing  at  first  to  mark 
how  the  grand  pavilions  and  porticos 
of  the  Manufactures  and  Liberal  Arts 
Building  are  accented  by  frequent 
spaces  covered  with  artistic  decoration. 
In  each  of  the  four  corner  pavilions 
there  are  two  tympana,  those  on  the 
south  side  having  been  given  to  Mr. 
Gari  Melchers  and  Mr.  Walter  Mac- 
Ewen  to  fill  with  a  decorative  design. 
Both  these  artists  have  made  elaborate 
compositions  representing,  in  general 
terms,  "Music"  and  "Manufactures" 
and  the  "  The  Arts  of  Peace,"  and 
"  The  Chase  and  the  Manufacture  of 
Weapons,"  respectively. 

In  the  foreground  of  "Music,"  at 
the  left,  a  group  of  Satyrs  pipes  to  a 
dancing  cluster  around  the  Muse  Eu- 
terpe, and  with  various  other  person- 
ages make  up  a  composition  of  great 
distinction  of  live  and  skilful  arrange- 
ment. The  second  panel,  which  illus- 
trates manufactures  or  textiles,  is 
equally  rich  in  groups,  and  in  the  back- 
ground of  both  compositions  is  con- 
tinued a  procession  in  the  honor  of 
Pallas  Athena,  who  was  credited  by  the 
Greeks  with  the  invention  of  spinning. 
The  general  color  gamut  is  light  with 
an  intricate  harmony  of  delicate  tones. 
The  procession  is  silhouetted  in  bluish 
tones  against  a  warm  sky  with  the  col- 
ors of  early  evening,  the  golden  reflec- 
tions touching  the  figures  with  beauti- 
ful lines  of  light.  Mr.  Melchers  has  fol- 


ENGRAVED    BY    J.   CLEMENT. 

'The  Armorer's  Craft,"  one  of  four  figures  by  E.  H.   Blashfield,   representing  the  Arts  of  Metal  Working. 


704 


THE  DECORATION  OF  THE  EXPOSITION. 


ft  * 


r  adopted  from  the  Standard  of 
under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella. 


lowed  out  much  the  same  general  plan  of  color  in  a 
varied  but  well  sustained  composition,  so  that  the  four 
tympana  make,  in  a  sense,  a  series  of  harmonious  pict- 
ures. 

The  four  grand  central  portals  of  the  Manufactures 
and  Liberal  Arts  Building  recall  triumphant  arches  of 
Roman  times.  Each  of  these  portals  has  a  lofty  central 
entrance  with  rich  bas-reliefs  by  Mr.  Bitter  and  smaller 
side  arches  under  pendentive  domes.  These  eight  domes 
have  been  filled  with  figure  decorations,  each  by  a  dif- 
ferent artist.  Those  on  the  south  front  of  the  building 
have  been  painted  by  Mr.  J.  Alden  Weir  and  Mr.  Rob- 
ert Reid,  who,  with  distinctly  individual  compositions, 
have  harmonized  their  designs  in  a  remarkably  agree- 
able and  skilful  manner.  Mr.  Weir  has  chosen  allegori- 
cal female  figures  of  "Decorative  Art"  [p.  695],  "The 
Art  of  Painting,"  "  Goldsmith's  Art,"  and  the  "  Art  of 
Pottery."  Each  of  these  figures  is  seated  on  a  balustrade 
and  is  relieved  against  a  sky  of  pale  broken  blue  tones. 
Flying  draperies  and  capitals  of  four  orders  of  archi- 
tecture serve  to  connect  the  lines  of  the  composition, 
which  is  further  enriched  by  a  cupid  holding  a  tablet 
inscribed  with  the  different  arts  and  decorated  with  a 
wreath.  The  figures  are  large  and  simple  in  line,  and 
the  general  scheme  of  color  is  pale  blue  varied  with 
purple  and  green,  a  combination  suggested  by  the  evan- 
escent hues  of  Lake  Michigan.  Mr.  Reid  has  also  se- 
lected seated  allegorical  figures  to  carry  out  his  ideas, 
with  the  addition  of  four  youths,  one  on  the  keystone 
of  each  arch,  holding  high  above  their  heads  wreaths 
and  palm  branches  which  meet  and  cross  so  as  to  form 
a  band  of  decorative  forms  around  the  upper  part  of 
the  dome.  A  semi-nude  figure  of  a  man  with  an  anvil 
and  wrought-iron  shield  represents  "  Iron  working  ; "  a 
young  girl  in  white  resting  one  arm  on  a  pedestal  and 
the  hand  of  the  other  arm  touching  a  piece  of  carved 
stone,  signifies  "  Ornament ; "  another  in  purple,  finish- 
ing a  drawing  of  a  scroll,  suggests  the  principle  of 
"  Design,"  as  applied  to  mechanical  arts,  and  the  fourth 
figure  is  readily  interpreted  as  honoring  the  "Textile 
Arts  "  [p.  693].  In  the  east  portal  Mr.  E.  E.  Simmons  has 
placed  a  single  figure  of  a  man  in  each  pendentive  of  the 
dome,  symbolizing  "  Wood  Carving,"  "  Stone  Cutting," 
"Forging"  [p.  696],  and  "Mechanical  Appliances."  The 
general  scheme  is  pale  gray  and  flesh-colored  tones  re- 
lieved and  accentuated  by  the  forms  of  the  tools  and  ac- 
cessories appropriate  to  each  figure.  The  composition 
is  bold  in  line,  firm  in  outline,  and  original  in  conception. 
Mr.  Kenyon  Cox  in  the  adjacent  dome  has  worked  so 
far  in  harmony  with  Mr.  Simmons  that  he  has  decorated 
the  pendentives  rather  than  the  upper  part  of  the  vault, 
placing  a  standing  female  figure  in  each  against  a  bal- 
ustrade and  foliage.  Above  the  heads,  graceful  bande- 
roles, bearing  the  subjects  illustrated,  convert  each  pen- 
dentive into  a  shield-shaped  space.  A  robust  woman  in 
buff  jacket  testing  a  sword,  suggests  "  Steel  Working." 
A  graceful  girl  in  blue  and  white  drapery  holding  a  rare 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


705 


vase  needs  no  title  to  show  that  she  rep- 
resents "Ceramic  Painting"  [p.  697]. 
"  Building "  is  symbolized  by  a  tall 
and  shapely  damsel  in  golden 
green  robes,  standing  near  an 
uncompleted  wall,  and  "  Spin- 
ning "  by  a  stately  maiden  of 
fair  complexion  dressed  in 
rose-colored  stuffs,  with  the 
significant  accessory  of  a  spi- 
der web.  In  the  north  por- 
tal Mr.  J.  Carroll  Beckwith 
has  illustrated  the  subject  of 
Electricity  as  applied  to  Com- 
merce. Four  female  figures 
occupy  the  pendentives.  The 
"  Telephone  "  and  the  "  Indi- 
cator "  are  personified  by  a 
woman  standing  holding  a 
telephone  to  her  ear  and  sur- 
rounded by  tape  issuing  from 
the  ticker  [p.  699]  ;  "  The 
Arc  Light "  by  a  figure  kneel- 
ing holding  aloft  an  arc  light ; 
"  The  Morse  Telegraph  "  by 
a  woman  in  flying  draperies 
seated  at  a  table  upon  which 
is  the  operating  machine, 
while  she  reads  from  a  book ; 
and  "The  Dynamo"  by  a 
woman  of  a  type  of  the 
working  -  class  seated  upon 
the  magnet  with  a  revolving 
wheel  and  belt  at  her  feet. 
Above,  in  the  upper  dome,  is 
placed  the  "Spirit  of  Electric- 
ity," a  figure  of  a  boy  at  the 
top  of  the  dome  from  which 
radiate  rays  of  lightning,  to 
Avhich  he  points.  Mr.  Walter 
Shirlaw,  who  has  decorated 
the  neighboring  dome,  shows  distinct 
originality  of  conception  in  his  four  al- 
legorical figures,  "  Gold"  [p.  698],  "Sil- 
ver," "Pearl,"  and  "Coral,"  symbolizing 
the  abundance  of  the  land  and  the  sea. 
The  maiden  representing  "Gold"  steps 
forward  freely,  her  mantle  of  yellow  fall- 
ing as  she  advances.  A  silver- gray  cloak, 
fastened  with  silver  disks,  distinguishes 
the  figure  of  "  Silver."  "  Pearl "  stands 
erect  with  glistening  pearls  around  her 
neck  and  on  her  garments.  "  Coral," 
with  raised  arms,  places  a  coral  orna- 
ment in  her  hair.  A  spider's  web  in  dec- 
orative pattern  connects  the  figures  and 
occupies  the  central  surface  of  the  dome. 


White,  green,  and  gold,  treated  in  mon- 
otones, form  the  color  plan. 

The  figure  on  page  701  is  taken  from 


Musicians,"    Fragment    from    the    Procession,    by   W.    L.    Dodge, 
Dome  of  the  Administration   Building. 


a  sketch  of  one  of  Mr.  C.  S.  Reinhart's 
figures  in  the  south  dome  of  the  West 
Portal,  and  has  been  materially  changed 
in  the  enlargement,  and  improved  in  ac- 
tion and  accessories.  The  effort  of  the 
artist  has  been  to  bring  all  the  separate 
tones  into  harmony  with  each  other, 
making  the  design  and  color  appropri- 
ate to  the  purposes  of  the  building,  the 
architecture,  and  the  construction  of 
the  pendentive  dome  itself.  A  white- 
marble  terrace  describes  a  complete  cir- 
cle just  above  the  four  arches  of  the 
dome,  the  railing  of  which  is  a  repetition 
of  the  actual  one  which  finishes  the  top 
of  the  walls  of  the  building  itself  ;  above 


706 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


a  vibrating  blue  sky,  with  touches  of 
salmon  pink  ;  in  the  pendentives  four 
seated  female  figures,  representing  the 


by  a  helmeted  figure ;  the  "Brass 
Founder"  and  "Iron  Worker"  by  two 
half-nude  youths,  one  holding  an  em- 
bossed trencher,  the 
other  a  hammer,  while 
a  maiden,  in  the  close- 
ly clinging  gown  of 
the  fifteenth  century, 
with  a  statuette  in  her 
hand,  symbolizes  the 
"Art  of  the  Gold- 
smith." The  extreme 
points  of  the  penden- 
tives are  filled  by  ap- 
propriate attributes,  a 
pair  of  gauntlets,  brass 
workers'  tools,  a  horse- 
shoe,  and  a  medal. 
Behind  the  figures,  and 
a  little  above  their 
heads,  is  a  frieze  of  Re- 
naissance scroll  work, 
and  the  whole  compo- 
sition is  bound  togeth- 
er by  flying  banderoles 
and  by  the  sweep  of 
the  widely  extended 
wings.  The  centre  of 
the  dome  is  occupied 
by  two  winged  infants 
supporting  a  shield. 
The  general  color 
scheme  comprises  a  se- 
ries of  peacock  blues, 
greens,  and  purples, 
brilliant  white  tones  in 
wings  and  frieze,  and 
pale  blue  of  the  sky  as 
a  background  to  the 


Female  Figure  from  W.  L.   Dodge's  Decoration  in  the  Administration  Building. 


Arts  of  Sculpture,  Decoration,  Em- 
broidery, and  Design.  Between  the  fig- 
ures and  above  the  arches  are  urns  with 
cactus,  from  which  vines  and  flowers 
are  trailing,  thus  uniting  the  composi- 
tion. The  treatment  is  mural — broad, 
flat  tones  within  the  severe  contours. 
Above,  in  the  sky,  faint  in  color  and 
harmonizing  with  the  sky  itself,  four 
cherubs  are  having  a  merry-go-round 
with  pale  ribbons. 

The  pendentives  of  the  adjacent  dome, 
painted  by  Mr.  E.  H.  Blashfield,  are  filled 
by  four  winged  genii,  representing  the 
"Arts  of  Metal  Working."  The  "Ar- 
morer's Craft "  [p.  703]  is  personified 


composition. 

The  list  of  figure 
decorations  briefly  described  above  in- 
cludes, with  the  exception  of  those  in 
the  Woman's  Building,  by  Miss  Mary 
Cassatt  and  Mrs.  Frederick  MacMon- 
nies,  all  the  work  of  this  special  artistic 
nature  which  has,  at  present  writing, 
been  decided  upon  ;  but  there  is  every 
reason  to  hope  that  the  panels  in  the 
Art  Building  may  receive  some  adorn- 
ment worthy  of  the  noble  structure, 
that  the  frieze  around  the  dome  of  the 
Horticultural  Building  may  also  be  ar- 
tistically treated,  that  the  Music  Hall 
of  the  Peristyle  may  have  various  wall- 
spaces  decorated  with  figure  work,  and 
that  the  scheme  laid  out  for  the  Manu- 


THE  DECORATION  OF  THE  EXPOSITION. 


factures  and  Liberal  Arts  Building-  may  be  completed 
by  the  painting  of  the  four  remaining  tympana  in  the 
corner  pavilions  on  the  north  end. 

The  sculpture  groups  on  the  roof  of  the  Woman's 
Building,  and  the  elaborate  pediments  executed  by 
Miss  Alice  Hideout,  Avith  the  Caryatides,  by  Miss  Enid 
Yandell,  have  already  long  been  in  place.  The  same  is 
true  of  Lorado  Taft's  graceful  groups  and  friezes  which 
adorn  the  Horticultural  Building,  and  of  Mr.  John  J. 
Boyle's  realistic  and  expressive  embodiments  of  ideas 
suggested  by  the  fertile  theme  of  Transportation,  and 
ranged  in  almost  bewildering  profusion  around  the 
building  which  bears  that  name.  The  much-desired 
statue  of  Columbus,  probably  to  be  executed  under 
the  direction  of  Mr.  St.  Gaudens,  the  regiment  of  stat- 
ues on  the  Machinery  Building,  by  Mr.  M.  A.  Waagen 
and  Mr.  Robert  Kraus,  those  on  the  Electricity  Build- 
ing, by  Mr.  J.  A.  Blankingship  and  Mr.  Henry  A.  Mac- 
Neil,  the  statue  of  Franklin,  by  Mr.  Carl  Rom-Smith, 
together  with  scores  of  other  works  of  more  or  less 
importance,  would,  if  listed,  make  a  long  catalogue  of 
interesting  objects  of  the  sculptor's  art.  The  immense 
numbers  of  these  works,  proportionate,  of  course,  to 
the  colossal  magnitude  of  the  Exposition,  forbid  even 
the  bare  mention  of  them  in  detail.  In  addition  to  j 

this  great  mass  of  sculpture  work  executed  for  the  spe-  ' 

cial  purpose  of  supplementing  the  architecture,  it  is  in- 
tended to  place  at  different  places,  notably  in  the  Grand 
Court  and  on  the  grounds,  and  in  the  colonnades  of  the 
Art  Building,  selected  examples  of  ancient  sculpture, 
various  reproductions  of  antique  monuments,  and  prob- 
ably also  a  certain  number  of  works  offered  for  exhibi- 
tion. 

An  essential  part  of  the  decoration  of  the  building 
is,  of  course,  the  architectural  details,  the  models  of 
which  have  been  executed  by  various  parties,  notably 
Ellin  &  Kitson,  of  New  York,  and  Evans,  of  Boston, 
with  distinguished  taste  and  skill.  The  capitals,  mould- 
ings, and  ornaments  of  Greek  and  Roman  buildings 
have  been  accurately  copied  on  a  scale  and  in  a  man- 
ner never  before  attempted.  A  few  short  months  ago 
there  was  in  this  country  but  a  very  limited  number 
of  full-sized  reproductions  of  any  of  the  notable  de- 
tails of  ancient  architecture.  The  cast  of  the  great 
Jupiter  Stator  capital  was,  it  is  said,  found  in  but  a 
single  architect's  office.  Now  the  whole  range  of  de- 
tails, from  the  beautiful  Ionic  capitals  of  the  Temple 
of  Minerva  Polias  to  the  mouldings  of  the  Arch  of 
Tittis,  are  practically  at  the  command  of  any  architect 
and  student. 

Much  has  been  said  and  much  written  about  the 
proper  color  to  be  giAren  to  the  exteriors  of  the  great 
edinces.  Experience  shows,  even  if  reason  had  not 
already  dictated  the  decision,  that  the  nearer  they  are 
kept  to  white  the  better  for  the  architecture.  Every 
experiment  which  has  been  made  to  produce  aesthetic  'at/: 
effects  of  texture  suggested  by  the  usual  treatment  of 


707 


Banner  adopted  from  the  Expedi 
ary  Flag  of  Columbus. 


708 


THE  DECORATION  OF   THE  EXPOSITION. 


Riders  of  Winged   Horses,  from  W.  L.  Dodge's  Decoration   in  the  Administration  Building. 


plaster  objects  lias  resulted  in  partial 
or  in  total  failure,  and  every  time  the 
warm  white  of  the  staff  has  been  med- 
dled with,  its  glory  has  departed.  But 
the  conditions  imposed  by  the  climate, 
by  the  impossibility  of  securing  a  ho- 
mogeneous surface,  and  by  the  expos- 
ure and  consequent  discoloration  of  a 
certain  portion  of  the  work  have  made 
it  necessary  to  apply  some  sort  of  paint 
to  all  the  buildings.  Ordinary  white- 
lead  and  oil  have  been  found  to  give  the 
best  results,  for  the  irregular  absorp- 
tion of  the  staff  and  the  weathering 
rapidly  produce  an  agreeable,  not  too 
monotonous  an  effect,  and  the  surface 
deteriorates  less  rapidly  after  this  treat- 
ment. The  single  notable  exception  to 
this  simple  scale  of  color  is  found  on 
the  Transportation  Building,  which  has 
been  given  to  Healy  and  Millet,  of  Chi- 
cago, to  cover  with  a  polychromatic  dec- 
oration, carrying  out  the  original  inten- 
tion of  the  architects,  and  making  it 
unique  and  splendid  in  appearance. 
All  the  statuary  of  this  building  is  to  be 
treated  with  bronze  and  other  metals, 
the  great  portal,  commonly  called  the 
"Golden  Door,"  will  be  exceedingly  rich 
and  gorgeous  in  effect,  and  the  intricate 


ornamentation  of  the  architectural  relief 
decoration  Avill  have  an  echo  in  the  flat 
surfaces  covered  with  rich  designs. 

The  decoration  of  the  Exposition 
would  be  incomplete  without  careful 
attention  to  the  informal  and  festive 
features,  such  as  flags  and  awnings. 
Every  building  presents  new  conditions 
and  demands  special  study  and  design. 
A  large  proportion  of  the  flag -staffs 
will  bear  gonfalons  or  banners,  but  a 
certain  number  will  be  reserved,  natur- 
ally, for  the  United  States  flag  and  the 
flags  of  all  nations.  At  various  points 
large  poles  will  be  planted  in  the 
ground,  most  of  them  for  the  purpose 
of  displaying  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and 
a  group  of  three  poles,  with  ornate 
bases,  elaborate  flutings,  and  proper 
finials  will  be  placed  in  front  of  the 
Administration  Building.  The  middle 
pole  will  carry  a  United  States  flag  of 
large  dimensions,  and  it  will  be  flanked 
on  either  side  by  a  large  and  sumptu- 
ous banner,  one  adapted  from  the  expe- 
ditionary banner  of  Columbus  [p.  707], 
the  other  from  the  standard  of  Spain 
[p.  704]  at  the  time  of  the  discovery  of 
America.  The  finishing  touches  of  the 
Exposition  can  only  be  given  after  the 


A   WEST  INDIAN  SLAl^E  INSURRECTION. 


709 


storms  of  winter  are  over  and  the  spring 
fairly  sets  in,  and  on  the  perfection  of 
the  finish  will  depend  a  great  part  of  the 
charm  of  the  place  to  the  visitor  and 
to  the  exhibitor.  It  was  recorded  in 
the  first  pages  of  this  article  that  lit- 
tle could  be  expected  of  the  interiors 
to  compare  with  the  elaboration  of  the 
fayades.  But  the  white -wash  brush 
which  converts  the  interior  of  a  hovel 
into  an  attractive  dwelling  can  also 
metamorphose  the  rough  timber-work 
into  a  near  semblance  of  finished  con- 
struction and  give  the  great  naves  and 


aisles  a  tidy  and  agreeable  aspect.  As 
far  as  this  work  has  already  proceeded 
it  has  surpassed  the  expectations  of  all 
concerned.  A  few  simple  tints,  selected 
with  care,  give  the  best  results  and 
form  a  most  satisfactory  background 
for  the  installation  of  exhibits. 

In  the  enormous  perspectives  ordi- 
nary means  of  decoration  with  bunting 
and  banners  fail  entirely,  for  they  are 
annihilated  by  the  colossal  size  of  the 
surroundings.  Therefore  the  problem 
is  a  new  one,  and  the  future  will  show 
whether  it  can  be  satisfactorily  solved. 


A  WEST  INDIAN  SLAVE  INSURRECTION. 

By  George  W.  Cable. 


L — STAGE  AND  ACTORS. 

'HIS  is  a  time  story.  But  it 
is  not  mine  ;  I  take  it  all 
from  a  friend's  manuscript, 
which  I  have  had  for  years 
and  which  lies  before  me 
now.  It  tells  of  a  beautiful 
island  lying  some  twelve 
hundred  miles  southeast- 
ward from  the  southern  end  of  Florida  ; 
the  largest  of  the  Virgin  group ;  the  isl- 
and of  the  Holy  Cross.  Columbus,  on 
his  second  voyage  of  American  discov- 
ery, sailing  into  the  marvellous  waters 
of  the  Caribbean  sea,  found  this  won- 
derful island.  Its  inhabitants  called  it 
Aye-Aye  ;  but  he  piously  changed  its 
title  to  Santa  Cruz,  and  bore  away  a 
number  of  its  people  to  Spain  as  slaves, 
to  show  them  what  Christians  looked 
like  in  quantity,  and  how  they  behaved 
to  one  another  and  to  strangers.  You 
can  hear  more  about  Santa  Cruz  from 
anybody  in  the  rum  business. 

It  has  had  many  owners.  As  with 
the  woman  of  numerous  husbands,  in 
the  Sadducee's  riddle,  seven  political 
powers  have  had  this  mermaid  as  bride. 
Spain,  the  English,  the  Dutch,  the  Span- 
iards again,  the  French,  the  Knights  of 
Malta,  the  French  again,  who  sold  her  to 
the  Guinea  Company,  who  in  1734  trans- 
ferred her  to  the  Danes,  from  whom  the 
English  captured  her  in  1807,  but  re- 
stored her  again  at  the  close  of  Napo- 
leon's wars,  in  1815.  Thus,  at  last,  Den- 
VOL.  XII.— 77 


mark  prevailed  as  the  ruling  power  ; 
but  the  English  language  remained  the 
speech  of  the  people.  The  two  towns  of 
the  island  are  Christiansted  on  the  north 
and  Fredericksted  on  the  south.  It  is 
about  twenty-three  miles  long  and  six 
miles  wide.  Christiansted  is  the  capital 

In  1848  there  lived  on  Kongensgade, 
that  is  King  Street,  in  Frekericksted,  a  lit- 
tle maiden  named  Dora.  I  have  known 
her  these  many  years,  though  I  did  not 
know  her  as  a  child  or  in  the  island.  She 
is  the  author  of  the  manuscript  now  ly- 
ing before  me,  from  the  facts  of  which  I 
shah1  not  go  aside  from  first  to  last,  even 
though  I  have  to  end  the  story  tamely 
without  births,  deaths,  or  marriages. 

She  dwelt  with  her  aunts,  Marion, 
Anna,  and  Marcia,  and  her  grandmother, 
and  was  just  old  enough  to  begin  taking 
care  of  her  dignity.  I  wish  the  story 
were  even  more  about  her  than  it  is. 
Whether  she  was  Danish,  British,  or 
United  Statesish,  she  was  often  puz- 
zled to  know.  When  her  grandmother, 
whose  husband  had  belonged  to  a  family 
which  had  furnished  a  signer  of  our 
Declaration,  told  her  stories  of  the 
American  Revolution,  Dora  felt  the  glow 
of  an  American  patriotism.  But  her 
grandmother  had  stories  of  English 
valor  and  renown  as  well,  and  when  in 
telling  these  she  warmed  up  to  their 
heroic  or  momentous  nature,  she  would 
remind  Dora  that  her,  the  damsel's, 
father  and  mother  were  born  on  this 
island  under  British  sway,  and  "once 


710 


A   WEST  INDIAN  SLAYE  INSURRECTION. 


a  Briton  always  a  Briton."  And  yet 
again,  Dora's  playmates  would  say — 

"  But  you,  yourself,  were  born  when 
the  island  was  already  Danish  ;  you  are 
a  subject  of  King  Christian  VHL" 

One  of  her  playmates,  much  beloved 
of  her,  was  invariably  silent  on  this  sub- 
ject. He  was  a  large  and  beautiful 
white  cat,  much  more  important  to 
Dora  than  he  is  to  this  story,  in  which 
he  appears  but  once,  momentarily  and 
quite  parenthetically. 

Kongensgade,  though  narrow,  was 
one  of  the  main  streets  that  ran  from 
the  walls  of  an  estate  at  the  northeast- 
ern end  of  the  town,  to  the  lagoon  and 
fort  at  the  southwestern  end.  Dora's 
home  was  a  long,  low  cottage  on  the 
street's  southern  side,  its  rear  facing 
southward,  seaward,  on  grounds  that 
sloped  downward  to  the  street  in  front 
and  rose  and  widened  out  extensively 
at  the  back,  until  they  suddenly  fell 
away  in  bluffs  to  the  beach.  It  had  been 
built  for  the  grandmother,  a  bridal  gift 
from  her  rich  husband.  But  now  in  her 
widowhood  the  wealth  was  gone,  and 
only  refinement  and  inspiring  traditions 
remained. 

At  her  husband's  death  the  estate  left 
her  was  mainly  slaves,  whose  sale  or  hire 
might  have  kept  her  in  comfort.  But 
a  clergyman  lately  come  from  England 
convinced  her  that  no  Christian  should 
hold  a  slave,  and  setting  them  free,  she 
accepted  a  life  of  self-help  and  of  no 
little  privation.  She  was  his  only  con- 
vert ;  his  own  zeal  soon  quieted  ;  and 
there  being  no  adequate  public  freedom 
provided  either  by  law  or  custom  for 
those  whom  private  hands  and  con- 
sciences liberated,  her  ex-slaves  merely 
hired  their  labor  to  less  scrupulous  em- 
ployers, and  yearly  grew  more  worthless 
to  themselves  and  the  community. 

Yet,  to  be  poor  on  that  island  did  not, 
of  necessity,  mean  a  sordid  narrowing 
of  life.  The  voices  of  nature  were  lofty, 
the  beauties  of  land  and  sea  were  in- 
spiring. You  would  have  found  the 
main  room  of  Dora's  home  furnished  in 
mahogany  black  with  age  and  mounted 
with  brass.  In  a  corner  where  the 
breezes  came  in  by  a  great  window, 
stood  a  jar  big  enough  to  have  held  one 
of  Ali  Baba's  thieves,  into  which  trickled 
with  a  cool  gurgle  a  thread  of  water 


from  a  huge  dripping-stone  set  in  a 
frame,  while  above  these  a  shelf  held 
native  waterpots  whose  yellow  and  crim- 
son surfaces  were  constantly  pearled 
with  dew  evaporating  through  the  po- 
rous clay.  On  a  low  mahogany  press 
near  by  was  piled  the  remnant  of  the 
father's  library ;  and  there  were  silver 
snuffers,  candlesticks,  crystal  shades, 
and  such  like  on  the  ancient  sideboard. 

But  it  was  not  old  mahogany,  brass, 
silver,  or  family  traditions  that  gave  this 
room  its  finest  charm.  As  you  entered 
it  from  the  street  the  glory  of  the  sea 
met  you  and  filled  the  place.  There 
was  no  need,  no  whereabouts,  for  pict- 
ures. The  living  portraits  of  nature 
hung  framed  in  wide  high  windows 
through  which  came  in  the  distant 
boom  of  the  surf  on  the  rocks,  and  its 
salt  breath  perfumed  with  the  blossoms 
of  the  cassia.  A  broad  door  led  from  it 
by  a  flight  of  stone  steps  to  the  couch- 
like  roots  of  a  gigantic  turpentine  tree 
whose  deep  shade  gave  harbor  to  birds 
of  every  hue.  It  was  these  things  that 
lent  the  room  such  beauty  that  even 
strangers,  entering  it,  exclaimed  aloud 
in  admiration. 

And  outside,  round  about,  there  was 
far  more.  To  Dora,  sitting  often  by  that 
equatorial  sea,  the  island's  old  Carib 
name  of  Aye -Aye  seemed  the  eternal 
consent  of  God  to  some  seraphic  spirit 
asking  for  this  ocean  pearl.  All  that 
poet  or  prophet  had  ever  said  of  heaven 
became  comprehensible  in  its  daily  trans- 
figurations of  light  and  color  scintillated 
between  wave,  landscape,  and  cloud,  its 
sea  like  unto  crystal,  and  the  trees  bear- 
ing all  manner  of  fruits.  Fragrance, 
light,  form,  color,  everywhere  ;  fruits 
crimson,  gold,  and  purple  ;  fishes  blue, 
orange,  pink  ;  shells  of  rose  and  pearl. 
Distant  hills,  clouds  of  sunset  and  dawn, 
sky  and  stream,  leaf  and  flower,  bird  and 
butterfly,  repeated  the  splendor,  while 
round  about  all  palpitated  the  wooing 
rhythm  of  the  sea's  mysterious  tides. 

The  beach !  Along  its  landward  edge 
the  plumed  palms  stood  sentinel,  min- 
gling their  faint  rustle  with  the  lipping 
of  the  waters  and  the  curious  note  of  the 
Thibet-trees  that  shook  their  long  dry 
pods  like  castanets  in  the  evening  breeze. 
By  the  water's  margin  what  treasures  of 
the  under  world  !  Here  a  sponge,  with 


CHICAGO'S   PART   IN   THE   WORLD'S   FAIR. 


By  Franklin  MacVeagh. 


T  will  aid  the  editor  of 
SCBIBNER'S,  who  wishes  to 
inform  the  readers  of  the 
MAGAZINE  as  to  the  rela- 
tions of  Chicago  and  the 
great  Exposition,  if  I  state 
that  this  article  is  written 
at  his  suggestion  by  one 
who  has  no  connection 
with  the  World's  Fair 
management ;  because  then  it  need  not 
be  read  as  if  it  were  the  doing  of  an 
enthusiast.  The  truth,  however,  is  that 
it  is  much  easier  to  keep  within  the 
facts,  in  this  case,  than  it  is  to  get  be- 
yond them,  if  one  has  only  the  usual 
imagination ;  and  the  editor  in  try- 
ing to  get  an  unbiassed  article  might 
have  saved  himself  some  of  his  trouble. 
Moreover,  there  is  probably  nothing  new 
to  be  said  at  all,  which  is  another  pro- 
tection against  enthusiasm  ;  for  every- 
thing touching  Chicago's  relations  to 
the  Fair  has  probably  been  said  many 
times  over — both  as  to  her  part  in  mak- 
ing the  Fair,  and  as  to  how  she  will  care 
for  the  people  who  visit  it.  But  the 
facts  have  not  been  put  all  together,  nor 
for  the  general  public,  in  any  more  de- 
liberate form  than  news  items  of  the 
daily  press. 

In  measuring  the  discharge  of  respon- 
sibilities by  Chicago  one  should  be  care- 
ful to  know  what  her  responsibilities 
are.  She  has  practically  taken  the  work 
of  the  Fair  upon  her  hands  entire,  even, 
in  large  measure  carrying  on  her  shoul- 
ders the  Government's  own  Commission. 
But  strict  limitations  to  the  responsi- 
bilities of  whatever  city  might  be  chosen 
as  the  place  of  the  Fair,  were  clearly 
fixed  by  the  Government.  The  theory  of 
the  law  was  that  the  World's  Fair  should 
be  controlled  and  administered  by  the 
Government's  Commission ;  while  the  city 
was  simply  to  furnish,  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  Commission,  a  site  and  buildings, 
and  then  to  conduct  the  mere  business 
administration.  The  scope  of  the  Fair, 
and  all  intercourse  with  exhibitors  and 
with  foreign  nations,  and  all  matters  of 


award  and  the  general  control,  were  to 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  Government.  To 
carry  out  the  engagements  of  Chicago  a 
corporation  was  formed,  the  members 
of  which  are  the  shareholders,  who  fairly 
represent  the  entire  community,  and 
whose  work  is  done  by  a  board  of  forty- 
five  directors.  There  are  therefore  two 
executive  bodies,  admirably  contrived 
for  conflicts  of  authority  and  general 
confusion  and  delay ;  all  of  which  prom- 
ised at  the  beginning,  but  have  been 
for  the  most  part  averted  by  the  uncon- 
templated dependence  of  the  National 
Commission  and  its  admirable  good 
sense  and  patriotism,  and  by  the  youth- 
ful readiness  of  Chicago  to  do  unlimited 
work  and  assume  unlimited  responsibil- 
ities. Perhaps  any  other  American  city 
would  have  done  this,  and  felt  obliged, 
by  the  Government's  reluctance,  to  pay 
the  way  of  its  Commission,  to  discharge 
its  own  responsibilities  and  those  of  the 
Government,  too.  Chicago,  at  any  rate, 
accepted  very  willingly  the  work  which 
threw  upon  her  an  almost  exclusive  re- 
sponsibility for  the  success  of  the  Fair. 
And  it  has  certainly  had  the  excellent 
effect  of  unifying  the  management,  by 
breaking  down  in  practice  the  double 
authority  fixed  by  the  law.  Since  the 
Government  would  not  adequately  sup- 
port it,  the  Commission  had  to  look  to 
the  Directory  for  a  part  of  its  subsist- 
ence ;  and  as  in  all  governments  the  real 
power  goes  with  the  purse-strings,  so  it 
was  in  this.  Possibly  the  power  might 
have  resided  in  the  National  Commission, 
if  Congress  had  generously  sustained  it ; 
and  yet,  looking  back  now,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  the  absence  of  the  pro- 
foundly individual  impress  made  upon 
the  Fair  by  the  characteristics  of  the 
city  ;  nor  does  it  seem  possible  that  the 
remarkable  power,  energy,  and  public 
spirit  which  were  so  ready  to  devote 
themselves  could  have  been  declined. 
At  any  rate  in  this  way,  and  in  this  alone, 
by  indefinitely  exceeding  Chicago's  re- 
sponsibilities, has  the  World's  Fair  se- 
cured the  advantage  of  the  astonishing 


552 


CHICAGO'S  PART  IN  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR. 


individuality  of  the  city.  And  so  favor- 
ably has  the  world  been  impressed  that 
it  is  doubtful  whether  Congress,  when  it 
makes  an  appropriation,  will  now  dis- 
turb the  situation. 

But  there  is  another  thing  to  be  said 
of  Chicago's  responsibilities.  It  is  gen- 
erally assumed  that  the  Fair  is  Chicago's 
enterprise,  and  only  countenanced  by 
the  Government ;  for  it  is  forgotten  that 
Congress,  feeling  obliged  to  celebrate 
the  four  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
discovery  of  America,  chose  to  hold  a 
World's  Fair,  and  established  it  before 
deciding  where  it  should  be  held.  There 
was  after  this  a  sharp  contest  in  Con- 
gress between  the  partisans  of  four  cities. 
This  is  a  different  thing,  and  carries 
very  different  responsibilities  from  a 
proposal  by  Chicago  to  hold  a  fair  on 
its  own  account,  coupled  with  a  request 
for  the  Government's  endorsement.  As 
I  have  intimated,  Chicago  hasn't  troubled 
itself  to  draw  lines  about  its  responsi- 
bilities, and  it  has  been  prompt  to  fill  all 
the  gaps  left  by  the  Government ;  but  if 
we  are  to  weigh  the  performance  of  her 
duties  we  must  understand  what  her 
duties  are. 

And  here,  before  going  on  to  specify 
what  has  been  done  by  Chicago,  and 
what  will  be  done,  let  me  say  a  word 
about  the  finances.  I  am  writing  before 
it  is  possible  to  know  what  action  Con- 
gress will  take  ;  but  I  have  no  doubt 
whatever  that,  whether  Congress  contri- 
butes or  not,  the  Fair  will  not  be  allowed 
to  fail,  or  even  to  suffer.  Chicago  is 
committed,  not  to  the  world — for  her  re- 
sponsibilities there  are  distinctly  limited 
— but  to  herself ;  and  under  whatever 
hardship  or  injustice,  she  will  unques- 
tionably raise  all  the  money  needed  if 
the  Government  refuses  to  participate.* 
No  one  who  understands  Chicago  could 
doubt  this  for  a  moment ;  and  if  Con- 
gress declines  the  responsibility  it  will 
be  because  she  knows  Chicago  will  as- 
sume it. 

Nothing,  however,  in  my  opinion, 
could  be  a  more  unjust  hardship. 
What  are  the  facts  ? 

1.  That  the  sum  put  in  the  bill  for 
the  city  to  contribute  was  five  millions. 

2.  That  no   higher    sum   was    men- 

*  This  paper  had  been  written  before  the  final  action 
of  Congress. 


tioned  while  the  contest  of  the  cities  was 
before  Congress. 

3.  That  the  deliberate  judgment   of 
Congress  and  of  the  contesting  cities,  at 
the  time  Chicago  was  chosen,  was  that 
five  millions  measured  all  a  city  should 
contribute  in  addition  to  a  site. 

4.  That  the  bill  had  practically  passed, 
and  simply  paused  in  the  hands  of  a 
committee  while  the  city  was  chosen, 
that  the  name  might  be  inserted ;  and 
at  this  juncture,  and  when  Chicago  had 
been  chosen,  one  of  the   unsuccessful 
cities  chose  to  say  it  would  have  pro- 
vided ten  millions,  whereupon  the  com- 
mittee chose  to  think  Chicago  ought  to 
double  the  amount  which  Congress  had 
itself  adopted.    Three  Chicago  men  went 
before  the  committee  to  meet  this  situa- 
tion.    They  thought  it  would  not  do  to 
stand  upon  their  rights,  and  yielded  to 
the    pressure.     They    telegraphed    the 
fact,  and  received  in  reply  a  telegram 
from  leading  Chicago  financial  institu- 
tions  and   wealthy  citizens,  sustaining 
them.     Perhaps  the  committee  ought  to 
have  insisted  upon  the  amount  in  the  bill 
when  the   cities  contested,  and   which 
was  part  of  a  moral  contract ;  but  they 
did  not,  and  Chicago,  which  had  not  en- 
tered a  ten-million  contest,  found  itself 
with  its  obligations  suddenly  doubled — 
doubled  in  a  day — never  having  before 
contemplated  such  a  thing. 

5.  That  the  committee  of   Congress 
itself  faltered,  fearing  Chicago   might 
be  promising  under  pressure  more  than 
it  could  perform.     It  therefore  cross- 
examined  Mr.  Gage,  the  Chicago  spokes- 
man, as  to  how  Chicago  could  get  the 
other  five  millions  of  dollars.     Mr.  Gage 
made  the  best   answers   he  could,  the 
new  situation  being  wholly  unexpected. 
He  said,  "  We  will  raise  another  million 
by    subscription,    and    then    we    will 
pledge  the  gate  receipts  and  borrow  the 
other  four  from  our  people.     We  will 
get  it  somehow,  for  we  have  promised." 

6.  That  as  five  millions  was  consid- 
ered sufficient,  no  one  ever  expected  that 
Chicago  ought  to  exceed  ten. 

7.  That  Chicago  has  voluntarily  raised 
the  sum  to  eleven  millions,  and  herself 
proposes  to  raise  it  to  thirteen. 

8.  That  meanwhile  the  National  Com- 
mission, which  had  to  be  made  satisfied 
with  site  and  buildings,  and  determined 


CHICAGO'S  PART  IN  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR. 


653 


the  scope  of  the  exhibits,  demanded  so 
much  that  eighteen  millions  will  be 
needed  to  open  the  Fair.  These  de- 
mands were  wise  and  were  heartily  be- 
lieved in  by  Chicago  ;  but  the  Govern- 
ment took  the  responsibility  of  making 
them. 

9.  That  Congress  has  itself  pro- 
nounced that  Chicago  has  already  ful- 
filled its  financial  obligation  to  the  Fair, 
leaving,  one  might  think,  nothing  to  be 
said. 

It  is  true  that  Chicago  was  expected 
to  furnish  the  site  and  buildings,  but 
certainly  not  at  a  cost  of  eighteen  mil- 
lions. If  Congress  refuse  to  share  the 
wholly  unexpected  increased  expense 
of  her  own  enterprise,  Chicago  will 
beyond  any  question  pay  it  all.  But 
would  it  be  worthy  of  the  nation  to 
take  advantage  of  a  clause  in  the  bill 
originally  associated  with  a  liability  of 
five  millions  of  dollars,  and  already 
obliged  to  include  a  liability  of  double 
the  original  amount,  to  make  a  single 
city  pay  eighteen  millions  in  face  of  the 
fact  that  the  increased  cost  has  been  in- 
curred by  the  Government  itself — and 
when  Congress  has  formally  enacted 
that  Chicago  has  fulfilled  its  obliga- 
tions ? 

And  these  financial  relations  have 
worked  from  the  beginning  other  mis- 
chief, and  have  made  Congress  not  sim- 
ply parsimonious,  but  unfriendly  and 
unjust  as  well  No  one  certainly  can 
deny  that  it  is  unfriendly  and  unjust  to 
enact  a  great  World's  Fair  and  select 
a  city  to  hold  it  in,  throw  the  whole 
expense  and  responsibility  upon  that 
city,  and  then  treat  the  whole  affair 
with  practical  hostility.  And  that  has 
occurred ;  and  Chicago,  in  addition  to 
lacking  the  support  of  certain  influen- 
tial parts  of  our  country,  and  those  the 
parts  most  known  and  listened  to  by 
foreign  nations,  has  had  to  carry  the 
weight  of  governmental  suspicion,  hesi- 
tation, and  indifference.  The  only  thing 
volunteered  by  Congress  has  been  an 
investigation,  and  its  only  anxiety  has 
been  to  escape  expense. 

And  under  these  not  too  easy  or  flat- 
tering circumstances,  what,  speaking  now 
specifically,  has  our  youngest  American 
city  done  ?  That  it  has  done  wonders 
all  the  world  now  knows ;  and  in  this 


we  may  all  take  pleasure,  for  it  is  a 
national  achievement  due  to  national 
traits  in  their  most  national  develop- 
ment. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  Chicago,  ex- 
pecting at  first  to  furnish  five  millions 
of  dollars,  has  supplied  eleven  millions, 
and  will  certainly  supply  two  millions 
more  ;  and  the  other  five,  if  the  Govern- 
ment doesn't. 

She  has  also  arranged  a  site  for  the 
Fair  which  in  extent,  in  situation,  in 
plan,  and  in  adornment,  exceeds  by  far 
anything  ever  before  attempted  for 
World's  Fair  purposes. 

She  has  provided  these  remarkable 
grounds  with  buildings  equally  remark- 
able ;  which  in  size,  variety  (within  the 
wonderful  harmony  of  a  general  plan), 
and  artistic  value,  constitute  the  greatest 
possible  aid  to  the  development  of  na- 
tional architecture,  and  suggest  the  sin- 
gle regret  that  they  are  not  to  remain 
always,  to  interest  and  instruct  the  na- 
tion. 

She  has  brought  sculpture  and  kin- 
dred forms  of  adornment  into  -generous 
use  to  make  the  buildings  more  worthy, 
more  interesting,  and  more  beautiful ; 
and  has  given  to  sculpture  other  wide 
and  distinguished  opportunities. 

She  has  brought  color  to  its  most  ar- 
tistic and  refined  exterior  uses,  and  pro- 
tected and  defined  it  to  a  single  large 
result ;  so  that  nothing  in  the  hundreds 
of  acres  is  too  large  or  too  small  — 
neither  a  building  nor  a  boat  —  to  be 
brought  into  a  general  harmony. 

These  great  effects  have  been  made 
possible  by  seeking  them  with  single- 
ness of  purpose  and  largeness  of  mind. 
In  the  first  place,  politics  had  to  be  vig- 
orously excluded ;  and  their  complete 
exclusion  and  the  substitution  of  pure 
public  spirit  in  their  stead,  is  one  of 
the  remarkable  feats  of  this  enterprise. 
The  expenditure  of  eighteen  millions  of 
public  money  within  two  years,  in  an 
American  city,  without  wasting  a  penny 
through  politics,  and  without  letting  a 
politician  ply  his  trade  for  one  moment, 
is  a  unique  achievement,  and  a  very  im- 
portant contribution  to  American  his- 
tory. 

To  achieve  these  great  effects,  another 
rigorous  exclusion  had  to  be  made,  and 
was  made  almost  or  quite  by  instinct — 


554 


CHICAGO'S  PART  IN  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR. 


the  exclusion  of  localism.  From  the 
first  the  directors  simply  sought  out 
the  best  things  and  the  ablest  men,  re- 
gardless of  where  they  came  from.  The 
architecture,  for  instance,  is  by  picked 
men  whom  all  would  say  represent  the 
best  development  of  that  art  throughout 
the  United  States.  The  color  directors 
come,  one  from  the  West  and  one  from, 
the  East.  The  chief  landscape  archi- 
tect is  Frederick  Law  Olmstead,  the  re- 
cognized head  of  his  profession.  So  in 
all  things  else  a  perfect  cosmopolitan- 
ism has  prevailed. 

But  more  than  this,  none  but  the 
largest  and  noblest  plans  and  the  best 
ideas  have  been  adopted  from  the  be- 
ginning until  now.  Nothing  is  inade- 
quate, nothing  without  great  plan,  noth- 
ing incomplete,  and  nothing  inharmoni- 
ous ;  and  nothing  falls  short  of  "  the 
best  that  is  thought  and  known  in  the 
world."  There  is  no  note  of  provincial- 
ism and  of  localism  :  all  has  been  ex- 
cluded but  the  evidence  of  unique  public 
spirit,  wonderful  energy,  and  the  better 
knowledge  of  the  world. 

Another  achievement  is  now  assured 
in  the  certain  completion  of  site  and 
buildings  within  the  time  specified. 

And  another  doubt  has  been  resolved 
by  the  unprecedented  foreign  interest 
in  the  Fair.  The  international  char- 
acter of  the  enterprise  will  be  more  ac- 
cented than  that  of  any  previous  exposi- 
tion. The  number  of  foreign  countries 
exhibiting  will  be  not  less  than  fifty- 
nine,  and  in  many  an  exceeding  interest 
is  felt.  What  seemed  the  impossible 
has  been  rather  easily  accomplished ;  and 
it  now  seems  as  if  we  had  been  over- 
looking the  special  reasons  why  both  ex- 
hibitors and  visitors  and  governments 
should  prefer  to  get  into  the  midst  of  a 
nation  rather  than  to  merely  reach  its 
coast.  Indeed,  the  justification  of  the 
location  of  the  Fair  in  the  interior  is 
now  seen  to  be  complete  ;  for  not  only 
will  foreign  exhibitors  have  access  to  all 
of  our  people,  and  all  foreigners  who 
come  see  a  much  greater  portion  of  our 
country,  but  our  own  people  will  better 
see  our  own  country  and  get  better  ac- 
quainted with  each  other. 

But,  after  all,  the  best  thing  that  Chi- 
cago can  boast  of  is  that  she  is  building 
a  Fair  that  can  conveniently  be  visited 


by  more  of  the  American  people  who  are 
not  rich  than  could  visit  it  in  any  other 
city.  This  is  her  finest  justification ; 
and  we  may  be  sure  she  has  done  this 
great  work  with  this  inspiring  thought 
in  her  mind.  And  it  can  truly  be  add- 
ed that,  as  she  has  been  building  for  the 
people,  and  as  politics  and  mere  localism 
have  been  excluded,  so  nothing  that  is 
petty  or  sordid,  or  any  other  way  un- 
worthy in  motive,  has  been  admitted 
within  her  plans.  She  could  not  have 
built  as  she  has  with  sordid  motives  or 
a  narrow  mind.  The  building  of  the 
Fair  could  not  be  given  over,  as  it 
wholly  is,  to  the  spirit  of  art  and  beau- 
ty, and  high  and  wide  usefulness,  if  the 
men  who  direct  it  or  the  community 
supporting  them  felt  it  to  be  other  than 
a  great  public  trust,  committed  to  hands 
that  must  be  kept  clean  and  to  minds 
that  must  be  kept  clear.  It  is  right 
that  this  should  be  said,  for  it  is  a  part 
of  the  evidence  of  how  Chicago  has  dis- 
charged her  responsibilities,  and  of  how 
she  has  dealt  with  the  honor  of  the  na- 
tion. 

And  so,  not  by  magic  but  through 
well-considered  purpose,  hard  thought, 
and  hard  work  Chicago,  in  acknowledg- 
ment of  her  responsibilities,  presents 
a  World's  Fair  site  and  buildings  that 
not  only  surpass  what  has  been  done 
by  previous  World's  Fairs,  but  equally 
surpass  the  expectations  of  the  nation  ; 
and  at  the  same  time  give  guarantee 
that  the  Exposition  will  be  filled  to  over- 
flowing with  the  exhibits  of  almost  the 
entire  world.  The  outside  alone  will  be 
enough  for  any  man  to  see  ;  and  the  in- 
side will  certainly  excel  that  of  any 
other  exhibition.  Even  the  more  purely 
intellectual  and  spiritual  sides  of  exhi- 
bitions, contrary  to  general  expectation, 
will  be  here  more  than  ever  accented  ; 
and  there  has  again  been  done  what 
was  thought  to  be  impossible,  in  plac- 
ing it  beyond  question  that  the  Fine 
Arts  department  will  be  one  of  the  great- 
est successes  of  the  Fair.  And  though 
the  Fair  has  from  the.  beginning  been 
treated  as  a  vast  educational  enterprise, 
the  other  important  end,  of  making  it 
an  entertainment  upon  a  vast  scale,  has 
been  completely  secured.  Orchestral 
and  choral  music  will  be  beyond  doubt 
at  their  best ;  and  amusements  and  nov- 


CHICAGO'S  PART  IN  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR. 


555 


elties  will  be  in  such  increased  numbers 
over  those  of  other  expositions,  and  of 
so  much  greater  elaboration,  and  will 
occupy  so  much  more  space,  that  they 
will  constitute  a  new  development.  And 
great  preparation  and  provision  has  been 
made  for  congresses  of  every  useful  kind  ; 
and  for  the  accommodation  of  these  the 
new  Art  Institute,  now  building  by  day 
and  night  in  the  centre  of  the  city,  will 
be  entirely  set  aside.  All  these  are  pro- 
vided, or  all  fully  assured  ;  and  are  noted 
here  as  chief  instances  only  among  the 
things  which  Chicago  has  thus  far  done 
in  fulfilment  of  her  legal  obligations,  and 
her  self-imposed  duties  to  the  nation 
and  the  world. 

The  other  of  the  two  main  questions 
to  ask  is,  what  Chicago  has  done  or  can 
be  trusted  to  do  to  take  care  of,  and  make 
safe  and  comfortable,  the  visitors  to  the 
Fair. 

The  facilities  for  getting  to  and  from 
Chicago  have  not  been  open  to  ques- 
tion. A  railroad  centre  so  phenomenal 
can  easily  take  the  people  to  and  from 
the  city.  All  of  the  great  railways  cen- 
tring there  —  and  I  believe  there  are 
more  than  thirty  small  and  great — are, 
however,  making  special  preparations. 
Additional  tracks  are  laid  in  some  in- 
stances, and  new  rolling  stock  is  be- 
ing generally  added.  I  am  credibly  in- 
formed, too,  that  every  terminal  station 
in  the  city,  except  one  which  has  been 
quite  recently  built  and  another  which 
will  be  entirely  new,  will  have  its  facili- 
ties materially  increased.  The  railroad 
managers  are  taking  advantage  of  all 
previous  experience  in  handling  crowds, 
to  provide  against  all  delays  and  dis- 
comforts that  can  possibly  be  foreseen. 

The  transportation  of  the  people  from 
other  parts  of  the  city  to  the  Fair  pre- 
sented difficulties  which  have  been  com- 
pletely solved.  All  excursion  trains — 
that  is,  all  trains  with  passengers  for 
the  Fair  exclusively,  no  matter  from 
what  distance,  nor  over  what  lines  they 
come — will  deliver  their  passengers  over 
the  Belt  lines,  in  the  Fair  grounds,  with- 
out entering  the  heart  of  the  city  at  all, 
and  will  take  up  their  passengers  at  the 
same  place.  The  transportation  facili- 
ties within  the  city  will  be  these  : 

1.  Surface  street-car  lines,  including 


one  first  class  cable  line,  which  has  in 
anticipation  just  now  doubled  its  capac- 
ity by  doubling  its  loop  facilities.  This 
line  has  handled  an  immense  Sunday 
traffic  easily  without  these  extra  facili- 
ties. 

2.  A   double-track   elevated   railroad 
just  completing,  and  therefore  a  new  re- 
source. 

3.  A  boat  system  from  the  old  city 
front.     This   transportation  will  be  in 
the  hands  of  one  very  responsible  com- 
pany.    The  vessels  will  be  large,  safe, 
and  well  appointed  ;  and  the  company 
is  obliged  to  furnish  a  service  equal  to 
at  least  fifteen  thousand  passengers  per 
hour. 

4.  The  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Com- 
pany's right  of  way  runs  from  the  centre 
of  the  city  almost  to  the  Fair  grounds, 
and  consists  of  six  tracks,  two  of  which 
are  for  suburban  passenger  traffic.     The 
right  of  way  is  being  raised,  and  four 
tracks  being  added  for  exclusive  World's 
Fair  passenger  traffic — two  for  express 
trains  from  and  to   the  centre   of  the 
city  without  stops,  and  two  for  trains 
that  stop  at   all  city  stations.      These 
four  tracks  will  run  into  the  World's 
Fair  grounds,  where  the  terminal  facil- 
ities  will  be  ample  and  perfect.      The 
facilities  of  this  line,  of  course,  could  be 
largely  increased  by  'the  partial  use  of 
its  other  tracks,  but  that  will  not  in  the 
least  be  necessary.      The  line  will  be 
protected  by  the  latest  and  best  auto- 
matic block  system  ;  and  it  is  expected 
to  carry  the  bulk  of  the  people. 

5.  The  World's  Fair  is  reached  from 
the  heart  of  the  city  by  parkways,  and 
many  people  will  choose  to  drive.     A 
cheap   cab    system    prevails,   and    the 
streets  are  well  supplied  with  hansoms 
and  other  cabs.     The  cabs  will  of  course 
greatly  increase. 

6.  Very  many  people,  living  or  stop- 
ping near  the  Fair  grounds,  will  need 
no  conveyance. 

Transportation  within  the  grounds 
will  be  all  that  could  be  wished.  As  all 
the  principal  buildings  are  directly 
reached  by  the  interior  water-courses 
(which  have  a  circuit  of  more  than  two 
and  a  half  miles)  three  classes  of  boats 
will  be  used — omnibus  boats  making 
regular  trips  and  stopping  at  each 
building  ;  express  boats  making  round 


556 


CHICAGO'S  PART  IN  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR. 


trips  without  stopping  ;  and  boats  an- 
swering to  cabs,  to  be  hailed  and  en- 
gaged for  the  trip  or  by  the  hour. 

There  will  also  be  an  elevated  railway 
making  a  five-mile  circuit,  and  reach- 
ing everywhere  within  the  grounds ; 
and  finally  there  will  be  the  usual  roll- 
ing chairs  that  are  found  at  all  Exposi- 
tions in  profusion. 

But  can  visitors  be  comfortably 
lodged  ?  It  must  be  remembered  that 
when  the  numbers  of  admissions  to 
World's  Fairs  are  mentioned,  these  do 
not  mean  people.  Visitors,  of  course, 
multiply  their  visits.  But  in  addition 
to  the  multiplication  of  visits  there  is 
to  be  borne  in  mind  the  fact  that  very 
many  of  the  visitors  at  all  expositions 
are  the  people  of  the  city  in  which  it  is 
held,  or  who  come  from  distances  that 
admit  of  excursion  trains.  This  greatly 
reduces  the  apparent  need  of  house  ac- 
commodation. It  is  a  noteworthy  fact 
that  Paris  (at  least  as  far  as  I  could  ob- 
serve) didn't  build  a  single  new  hotel, 
or  enlarge  an  old  one,  in  1889. 

Then  the  mass  of  the  visitors  who  will 
need  lodgings  will  wish  moderate  prices, 
and  will  choose  boarding-houses  ;  and 
boarding-houses  can  rise  in  a  night. 
At  Philadelphia  there  were  boarding- 
houses  in  profusion,  because  they  could 
so  easily  be  improvised  ;  and  so  it  will 
be  in  Chicago,  where  people,  as  at  the 
Centennial,  will  turn  an  honest  penny 
by  taking  boarders  or  lodgers  just  as 
far  as  the  demand  shall  exist.  And  the 
same  is  true  of  restaurants,  which,  how- 
ever, are  already  in  very  abundant  sup- 
ply. The  danger  is  not  that  there  will 
be  too  few  restaurants,  lodging,  and 
boarding  houses,  but  that  there  will  be 
too  many  to  be  profitable. 

But  after  all  allowances  are  made, 
there  will  be  great  use  for  hotels,  and 
especially  for  those  of  the  highest  grade. 
That  Chicago  has  always  had  hotel  ac- 
commodations ample  for  special  occa- 
sions is  quite  true,  and  great  gatherings 
like  national  conventions  have  chosen 
it  for  that  reason  ;  but  lately,  and  es- 
pecially in  view  of  the  World's  Fair,  ho- 
tels have  largely  increased  in  number 
(and  they  have  also  improved  in  qual- 
ity). I  recall  four  large  hotels  of  the 
first  grade  that  have  opened  since  Chi- 


cago was  given  the  Fair  (besides  the 
Auditorium  hotel,  also  opened  about 
that  time),  two  that  are  opening  now, 
three  nearing  completion,  and  the  du- 
plicate Auditorium  that  is  to  be  ready 
next  spring.  There  are  other  perma- 
nent ones  doubtless  built  or  building  not 
seen  by  me  ;  and  there  are  large  hotels 
to  be  improvised  near  the  grounds,  and 
I  think  another  permanent  one  about 
which  I  am  not  particularly  informed. 

Of  course  all  hotels  can,  if  required, 
increase  their  facilities  by  taking  on 
rooms  near  at  hand  ;  and  if  there  should 
be  need  it  would  then  be  profitable  to 
temporarily  use  some  of  the  great  fire- 
proof structures  constantly  going  up. 
Such  extreme  possibilities  I  only  men- 
tion to  show  how  impossible  it  is  that 
an  enterprising  American  city  could  be 
without  accommodation  for  expected 
visitors  ;  but  I  think  it  will  be  clear 
from  the  above  that  no  extraordinary 
provision  will  be  necessary.  Certainly 
one  would  think  not  when  the  experi- 
ence of  Paris  in  1889  is  recalled.  It 
will,  however,  allay  any  remnant  of  ap- 
prehension, if  I  state,  after  very  good 
authorities,  that  there  are,  great  and 
small,  fourteen  hundred  hotels  in  the 
city. 

A  bureau  will  be  established  by  the 
Directors,  and  another  by  the  Lady 
Managers,  which  will  systematically  aid 
all  who  may  require  their  services  in 
placing  themselves  satisfactorily.  These 
bureaus  will  have  all  the  necessary  in- 
formation, and  will  have  agencies  at  all 
the  stations  ;  but  of  course  a  variety  of 
private  enterprises  will  anticipate  a  great 
deal  of  the  necessity  for  these  services. 

The  police  arrangements,  I  am  defin- 
itely assured  by  Major  McClaughrey, 
the  able  chief  of  police,  are  receiving 
the  fullest  attention,  and  will  be  ample 
and  efficient.  The  force  for  the  World's 
Fair  itself  will  not  tax  the  general  po- 
lice force,  but  is  a  separate  body  which 
has  been  organized  and  growing  with 
the  Fair,  under  the  command  of  Col- 
onel Rice,  of  the  United  States  Army. 
It  will  consist  of  not  less  than  five  hun- 
dred men.  The  city  force  has  been 
"  taken  out  of  politics,"  and  has  been 
severely  reorganized  by  Major  Mc- 
Claughrey ;  and  even  in  its  political 
days  it  was  always  effective  in  emergen- 


CHICAGO'S  PART  IN   THE  WORLD'S  FAIR. 


557 


cies.  It  will  number  probably  from 
3,400  to  3,700  before  the  Fair  "opens; 
and  will  be  greatly  strengthened  by  the 
new  Bureau  of  Identification  on  the  sys- 
tem of  M.  Bertillon,  of  Paris,  which  is 
an  interesting  feature  of  the  prepara- 
tions. This  bureau  will  have  the  Bertil- 
lon measurements  of  most  of  the  prin- 
cipal "  crooks  "  and  criminals  of  Europe 
and  America  ;  and  the  fact  that  their 
identification  by  this  dreaded  system  is 
easy,  will  deter  many  from  coming,  so 
that  it  would  not  be  strange  if  Chicago 
should  become  during  the  Fair  less  the 
resort  of  the  criminal  classes  than  it,  or 
any  great  city,  usually  is. 

A  word  now  about  the  water-supply 
of  the  city,  for  the  reason  that  more  or 
less  has  been  rather  sensationally  pub- 
lished upon  the  subject,  both  in  Eng- 
land and  America,  in  the  way  of  warn- 
ing to  those  intending  to  visit  the  Fail-. 
The  simple  truth  is  that  there  will  be  no 
trouble  with  the  water-supply  next  year, 
as  there  is  hone  now  ;  for  Chicago  has 
now  and  will  have  then  what  it  has  al- 
ways had,  except  for  a  few  brief  inter- 
vals (which  cannot  now  occur),  the  most 
favorable  water-supply  enjoyed  by  any 
of  the  great  cities  of  the  world.  The 
difficulty  is  to  explain  how  any  hubbub 
has  risen  against  water  that  is  not  only 
not  bad,  but  is  good  and  wholesome 
and  delicious  almost  beyond  compari- 
son. Lake  Michigan,  which  the  city  faces, 
is  the  source  of  supply,  and  is  a  great 
body  of  the  freshest,  clearest,  coolest, 
and  purest  water  that  can  be  imagined. 
As  a  source  of  supply  for  a  city  it  is 
ideal.  The  drainage  of  the  city  is,  of 
course,  not  into  the  lake,  but  into  the 
Chicago  River,  which  is  also  the  port  of 
the  city  and  leaves  the  lake  port  unused. 
The  course  of  the  river  was  long  ago 
changed,  and  is  not  into  but  out  of  the 
lake,  and  through  a  canal  to  the  Illinois, 
and  so  on  to  the  Mississippi.  Thus  the 
drainage  flows  westward  over  and  be- 
yond the  lake's  watershed,  leaving  the 
lake  itself  as  pure  and  clear  as  when  it 
was  an  Indian  highway. 

Then,  why  is  there  any  criticism  ?  I 
fear  it  must  be  admitted  that  enough 
excitement  was  aroused  by  the  contest 
over  the  location  of  the  World's  Fair  to 
make  criticism  of  Chicago  rather  entic- 
VOL.  XII.— 60 


ing,  so  that  rigid  investigation,  which 
might  forestall  it,  isn't  held  to  be  ob- 
ligatory. The  starting-point  of  the  story 
— which  could  easily  have  shown  itself 
to  be  but  a  temporary  accident,  against 
whose  effect  a  remedy  was  preparing 
and  then  almost  completed — was  a  flood 
in  the  Chicago  River.  In  this  year  of 
singular  storms  and  downpours  more 
than  one  flood  had  occurred  ;  and  when 
the  flood  is  heavy  enough  the  devices 
of  engineering,  pumping- works,  and  all 
are  overcome  and  the  current  of  the 
river  is  turned  toward  the  lake.  The 
river  drains  such  a  very  small  district 
that  floods  are  not  frequent  and  are  of 
very  short  duration  ;  and  it  is  only  the 
exceptional  ones  that  can  carry  the 
river-stream  very  far  beyond  the  shore 
of  the  lake.  Now,  the  water-supply  has 
been  taken,  since  the  city  grew  large,  at 
a  point  two  miles  from  the  shore,  con- 
siderably away  from  the  direction  of 
the  river,  and  considered  to  be  beyond 
the  possible  reach  of  the  waters  of  a 
flood.  But  as  it  was  proven  that,  under 
certain  coincident  conditions  of  wind 
and  flood,  the  waters  of  the  river  could 
get  that  far,  tunnels  were  undertaken 
four  miles  long,  to  unimpeachable  dis- 
tance and  depth,  and  they  have  just 
been  completed  ;  so  that  the  remedy 
was  almost  at  hand  when  the  criticism 
arose.  The  new  drainage  undertaking, 
which  the  city  has  just  entered  upon,  in- 
volving a  probable  outlay  of  thirty  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  confirms  the  fitness  of 
the  present  system,  of  which  it  is  but 
an  elaboration  meant  to  anticipate  the 
demands  of  a  city  of  several  millions  of 
people.  When  that  is  finished  even 
floods  cannot  affect  the  steady  course  of 
the  river,  but  will  themselves  suffer  cap- 
ture and  be  sent  harmlessly  into  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi.  Meanwhile 
the  new  tunnels  make  the  water-supply 
perfectly  secure.  Doubtless  the  World's 
Fair  has  hastened  these  tunnels,  but 
they  were  begun  before  it  was  thought 
of.  And  it  may  be  said  generally  that 
no  city  could  be  more  careful  at  all 
times,  or  more  enterprising  or  indiffer- 
ent to  cost,  in  the  protection  of  its 
water-supply  and  the  management  of  its 
drainage  ;  and  to  this  is  doubtless  due, 
in  large  measure,  the  remarkable  health- 
fulness  of  the  city. 


Hauteville  House,  the  Residence  of  Victor    Hugo,  on  the  Island  of  Guernsey. 


CONVERSATIONS   AND   OPINIONS   OF  VICTOR   HUGO. 

FROM  UNPUBLISHED  PAPERS  FOUND   AT   GUERNSEY. 
By  Octave  U^anne. 


THE  English  weekly  review,  the  Ath- 
enceum,  published  in  April  last  the 
following  curious  information  : — 
"  Mr.  Samuel  Davey,  archivist  and  ex- 
pert in  autographs,  announces  to  us  that 
he  has  acquired  &  journal  intime  of  Tic- 
tor  Hugo.  '  The  Journal  of  Exile/  con- 
sisting of  about  two  thousand  pages  of 
close  writing,  as  well  as  a  thousand  let- 
ters addressed  to  the  poet.  These  let- 
ters were  contained  in  six  stout  pack- 
ages of  divers  papers,  which  the  son  of 
Mr.  Davey  bought  some  veal's  ago,  and 
which  seem  to  have  been  sold  by  the 
people  of  Hauteville  House  as  so  much 
waste  paper.  The  journal  commences 
in  July,  1852.  and  goes  to  1856.  It  is 
a  minute  relation  of  the  conversations 
of  Victor  Hugo  with  his  family,  his 
friends,  and  distinguished  visitors,  that 
seems  to  have  been  written  dav  bv  dav. 


Victor  Hugo  must  have  reviewed  this 
journal  himself  with  care.  With  his 
own  hand  he  has  made  corrections  and 
additions.  The  correspondence  extends 
over  a  period  of  nearly  fifty  years.  It 
comprises  letters  of  a  great  number  of 
celebrated  people — writers,  artists,  mu- 
sicians, actors,  politicians,  and  political 
refugees — from  all  parts  of  the  globe." 

This  note,  furnished  by  a  literary  re- 
view generally  well  informed,  and  of 
which  the  authority  is  very  great  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  was  enticing,  and  as  I 
found  myself  in  London  at  the  moment 
when  it  appeared,  I  hastened  instantly 
to  the  house  of  the  expert  and  dealer 
in  autographs,  Mr.  Samuel  Davey,  situ- 
ated on  Great  Russell  Street,  immedi- 
ately opposite  the  British  Museum. 

The  worthy  Mr.  Davey,  whom  I  now 
count  among  my  friends,  received  me 


